Sofia Leão is now discovering herself and the world with Mar. Sofia Leão is 18 years old and was only 13 when she recorded for the first time with her father, Rodrigo Leão. She took part in ‘Bailarina’, a song on the album O Método, which also featured the choir of the Associação Musical dos Amigos das Crianças. It was at this institution, AMAC, that she studied classical piano with the teacher Sara Fernandes, where she completed the 8th grade of this instrument. These studies and the piano are some of the tools she now uses in this Mar, but not the only ones.
Sofia’s process of musical discovery began more recently, at the age of 10, when she started using her computer to record her first ideas. But, as Sofia herself explains, it was only more recently, at the age of 15, that those first ideas began to take shape. ‘Thanks to the invaluable help of long-time friends who have always been with me, I managed to set up a little corner in my bedroom with the materials I needed to start exploring the ideas that were ringing in my head. I fell in love with the magic that voices have together. It’s a kind of vocal puzzle made by trial and error, resulting in sometimes improbable atmospheres,’ she explains.
The next step was to take what she began to create in solitary mode in her bedroom to the studio. With the help of João Eleutério, a musician, producer ‘and also a friend’ who shares a studio with Rodrigo Leão, Sofia brought these ideas to life at the end of 2023. That work is now revealed. Like Sofia herself. In ‘Não Me Conheço’ Sofia asks questions that are universal – ‘Where does the sea end? Where does the sky begin?’ – but which take on a different resonance with her quiet, almost whispery voice.
In the songs she is showing us now, made up of transparent and simple melodies drawn on the piano, wrapped in strings or fleeting electronic atmospheres, elevated by harmonies she creates with her voice, those vocal puzzles into which she fits the pieces her imagination offers her, Sofia Leão discovers herself and the world, she becomes the Sea with the bravery of someone who creates because she has to. And yet another mystery is born, made of songs, words, voices and melodies – invisible materials that only the soul understands.