Mísia

Mísia (born Susana Maria Alfonso de Aguiar, in 1955 in Porto, Portugal) is a Portuguese fado singer. Mísia is a polyglot. Despite singing mostly fado, she has sung some of her themes in Spanish, French, Catalan, English, and even Japanese.

Parentage

Mísia's mother was Spanish and used to be a cabaret dancer, which accounts for many of the influences that shaped her music: tango, bolero, the use of Portuguese guitar with accordion, violin and the piano.

Style

Throughout her career, Mísia developed a new style: she modernized Amália Rodrigues's fado, shocking orthodox audiences by adding to the traditional instruments (bass guitar, classical guitar and Portuguese guitar) the sensuality of the accordion and the violin, and borrowing their finest verses from the greatest Portuguese poets.

Recordings

Her first album was released in 1990, at a time when, even at home in Portugal, fado was a poor career choice for a singer. With the exception of Amália Rodrigues and Carlos do Carmo, there was no audience for "fadistas". Nevertheless Mísia went on to record an album respecting all the traditional features of the genre, including poems from popular fado songwriters, such as Joaquim Frederico de Brito or José Niza, alongside poems by famous Portuguese poets, such as José Carlos Ary dos Santos, and even a piece from Vinicius de Moraes´ song, "Samba em Prelúdio".

Malaysia

Coordinates: 2°30′N 112°30′E / 2.500°N 112.500°E / 2.500; 112.500

Malaysia (ⁱ/məˈleɪʒə/ mə-LAY-zhə or ⁱ/məˈleɪsiə/ mə-LAY-see-ə; Malaysian pronunciation: [məlejsiə]) is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. It consists of thirteen states and three federal territories and has a total landmass of 329,847 square kilometres (127,350 sq mi) separated by the South China Sea into two similarly sized regions, Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia (Malaysian Borneo). Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. With a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia. Located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species.

Moesia

Moesia (/ˈmiːʃə/, /ˈmiːsi.ə/, or /ˈmiːʒə/;Latin: Moesia; Greek: Μοισία) was an ancient region and later Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River. It included most of the territory of modern-day Serbia (without Vojvodina) and the northern parts of the modern Republic of Macedonia, (Moesia Superior), as well Northern Bulgaria and Romanian Dobrudja, (Moesia Inferior).

History

In ancient geographical sources, Moesia was bounded to the south by the Haemus (Balkans) and Scardus (Šar) mountains, to the west by the Drinus (Drina) river, on the north by the Donaris (Danube) and on the east by the Euxine (Black Sea).

The region was inhabited chiefly by Thracians, Dacians (Thraco-Dacians), Illyrian and Thraco-Illyrian peoples. The name of the region comes from Moesi, Thraco-Dacian peoples who lived there before the Roman conquest.

Parts of Moesia belonged to the polity of Burebista, a Getae king who established his rule over a large part of the Northern Balkans between 82 BC and 44 BC. He led plunder and conquest raids across Central and Southeastern Europe, subjugating most of the neighbouring tribes. After his assassination in an inside plot, the empire was divided into several smaller states.