LEILA PINHEIRO Leila Pinheiro was born in Belém, in the northern Brazilian state of Pará. She started playing the piano when she was 10, and ten years later dropped out of medical school to devote herself full-time to her musical career. Her debut performance as a singer was in October 1980 with the show entitled Sinal de Partida, at Teatro da Paz in Belém. In May 1981 Pinheiro moved to Rio de Janeiro. Two months later she started working on her first LP, LEILA PINHEIRO, an independent recording which was eventually released in 1983. The special guest performers included Tom Jobim, João Donato, Ivan Lins, Francis Hime and Toninho Horta. In 1985 she took part in the last large-scale festival of Brazilian music, “Festival dos Festivais” singing “Verde”, by Eduardo Gudin and José Carlos Costa Netto. The song took third place and Pinheiro won the Best New Artist award. International Management | Marcus Fernando
[email protected] +55 21 2275.7337 / +55 21 8887.7337 skype: marcusfernando In the following year Leila Pinheiro signed a contract with PolyGram (now Universal Music) and recorded OLHO NU, which was distributed simultaneously in Brazil and Japan. It included American guitarist Pat Metheny as special guest performer and songs by Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Renato Russo, among other leading names in Brazilian music. Leila Pinheiro’s first visit to Japan took place when she represented Brazil at the 17th Yamaha World Popular Song Festival, receiving the Best Vocal Performance award. In the following year, she was awarded the Villa Lobos trophy by ABPD, the Brazilian Record Producers Association, for Best New Female Performer of 1987.