Deeply rooted in both chanson française and fado, Lizzie unveils songs of rare intimacy — each one carried by a voice steeped in saudade, that subtle mingling of longing and grace.

   It was in her teenage years, through what seemed like chance — or perhaps destiny — that this pianist and guitarist, raised on the voices of Joan Baez and Barbara, first encountered fado. The discovery was a revelation: a calling that revealed her true place as a singer. Her voice, sometimes airy and radiant, sometimes steeped in tender fadistamelancholy, traces a path between light and shadow — between the familiar and the unknown.

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     Born to a father who sang John Lennon in a Beatles cover band and a mother who played Barbara on repeat, I grew up believing I was the daughter of one and destined to become the other.

My very first musical memory is of Barbara’s Perlimpinpin. At seven, I would stand on the table and sing it at the top of my lungs, overtaken by emotion, feeling for the first time the sheer power of words: “For a child who cries, no matter where they’re from, is still a child who cries. For a child who dies at the end of your rifles is still a child who dies.” It was through songs that I began to grow.

     At six, I discovered the piano—dreaming of playing every piece by Chopin, hopelessly in love with the instrument.
    By twelve, I was writing and composing my first songs. Then came Joan Baez, and with her, the guitar that became my companion. Her melodies intoxicated me. Her deep voice and her gaze upon the world conquered me entirely. Listening to her over and over, I came to understand that beauty is an emotion—and that it flourishes best in purity and simplicity.

As a child, I sought myself in these great figures, but I finally realized that I could only exist through my own voice—my own path. Slowly, an uncanny feeling began to bloom within me, that somewhere out there an ideal song awaited me, in an ideal music whose contours I could almost sense.

    At seventeen, one day, I sat down to watch my favorite series. The television flickered on to a documentary set in Lisbon. For a reason I couldn’t explain, I was rooted to the spot—spellbound. And then she appeared: the great fadista, Mariza. In that instant, I knew it was a calling. There it was—the emotion I had been searching for. It had a name: Saudade. And its realm was Fado.

So it was by chance—or by destiny—that Fado entered my life. It revealed itself as the music I had been longing for: pure, timeless, and searingly alive. My heart and soul spoke Portuguese long before I knew a single word of it. I felt an irresistible need to master its contours and make it my language—just as French was. A happy decision, for the Portuguese tongue carries within it the secret pulse, the very heartbeat of Fado.

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   Today, I can say I am neither Barbara, nor Chopin, nor Édith, nor Joan, nor Mariza—nor even Lennon’s daughter. I am simply myself—Lizzie—inhabited by song, and by Saudade.

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     Désert is an album of chanson française touched by gentle melancholy and illuminated by saudade. Like Fado, which transforms sorrow into beauty, these songs are raw and tender at once — they heal by revealing the hidden grace that lives within sadness, silence, and uncertainty.

On stage, Lizzie appears alone, accompanied only by her guitar.

She offers a performance of rare authenticity — intense, vulnerable, and profoundly human — where voice and silence meet, and every note seems to breathe.