After her successful album with Ennio Morricone came out in 2003, Dulce Pontes´ return to the record stalls presents her as an independent publisher, producer, arranger, pianist, songwriter and partially responsible of the sound mixes and pre-mastering. On “O Coração Tem Três Portas" (The heart has three doors) Dulce takes finally the firm grip she always wanted to have over her work and she delivers a record that is vigorous in its sound, plenty of folk elements and deep in its conception and spirit. She ventures into different aesthetic realms where she proves amply sufficient, and, more than able and fully conscious of being on the top of her faculties, she gives herself totally and exhaustively in this album. The artist who, more than a decade ago, recovered fado for the new generations and, with her album "Lágrimas” (Tears), fostered the flowering of the new young wave of fado singers that currently floods the European world music market, uncovers herself with a surprising, exquisite musical and professional maturity, with no compro-mise whatsoever, and opens, seemingly for knowing ears, new ways for Portuguese folklore and tradition. Now on the verge of tackling the American market, with this double CD, that includes a DVD with a performance in Istanbul, Dulce revisits and reinvents the fado, the different types of fado that Portugal cherishes. With baroque agitation or medieval undertones, adorned with all the rich neighbouring folklore or with elements of minimalism or of the classi-cal impressionism of the early twentieth century. Either with naked guitars or submerged in the musical tradition of the church and even taken beyond that, the rich subtlety Dulce presents us with is the palpable demonstration of a real artistic maturity and evolution which effectively take a material form and are far from being the subject of a mere promotional blurb. Understanding the aesthetics of this album leaves us really uncertain as to what else Dulce could do afterwards, since the heights she has achieved place her before a veritable, premonitory abyss to which she has given herself unreservedly and before which only a few select artists would assume such daunting risks. Dulce Pontes, who was born in Montijo, Portugal in 1969, entered the music business when she won her country´s National Song Contest in 1991 after the disappointment of having been rejected by the Dance School in her teens on account of being only 14. In that same year of 1991 she represented Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest, where she gained the prize to the best singer and her voice had the opportunity to be heard throughout Europe for the first time.

Since then her life takes a turn and Dulce starts to search for her own self, delving into the roots of Portuguese mu-sic, including the traditional fado (which at that point was considered something of the past), and manages to rein-vent what seemed to be dead. As the following years and recordings will demonstrate, Dulce does something more than repeating things that had already been done and her luminous voice cannot fit within any limiting genre and does not know any borders. Her voice and her performing traits begin to form a genre of its own, with a unique, unmistakable style.

In 1992 she launches her first album "Lusitana", but it is on the following year, with her second work, "Lágrimas", when she becomes a world citizen, with all the musical critics specializing in ethnic rhythms, harmonies and tradi-tions devoting their attention to her. After “Lágrimas” came "A Brisa Do Coração" (The breeze of the heart), a double live album, in 1995, and "Caminhos" (Pathways) in 1996. Later, after her guest appearances on albums by Andrea Bocelli or the Brazilian singers Simone and Caetano Veloso, she launches "O Primeiro Canto" (The first singing). This album, produced by António Pinheiro da Silva, boasts the collaborations of the Hindu percussionist Trilok Gurtu, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter, the vocals of Maria João and Waldemar Bastos and the "trikitixa" (diatonic accordion) of Kepa Junkera.

The continuous search for a universe of her own brings about "Focus", an album appearing in October of 2003 on which she performs compositions by the great Ennio Morricone, who, captivated by the talent of the Portuguese singer, resolved to participate in the recording, the resulting album being a joint work of Ennio Morricone and Dulce Pontes. Not much later, Dulce surprises us again with a new turn in her career: her return to fado and the most universal sounds of Portuguese tradition seen from the perspective of a Dulce Pontes who has already found her place and knows precisely what she wants. She produces her own show, entitled "Por dentro do fado” (Inside fado), and receives standing ovations in every theatre. This exciting show was an advance of the contents of this new, surprising re-cording, “O Coração Tem Três Portas". Dulce is now about to embark on a month´s tour of the United States, where she will grace the stages of the Palace of the Fine Arts, San Francisco; the Mandeville Auditorium, San Diego; the New World Theatre, Austin; the John Hay Auditorium, Cleveland; the Portuguese Cultural Centre, Danbury; the Clarice Snith Performing Arts Center, College Park; the Kimel Center, Philadelphia; the Carnegie Hall, New York; the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, Miami and the Berkelee Performance Center, Boston.