One of Portugal’s brightest new stars' latest album Close To Me features the multi Grammy Award winning Metropole Orkest (the world’s leading Jazz symphonic orchestra) – in a chamber line up of thirty musicians, led by conductor, Grammy nominated Jazz pianist and composer John Beasley, who not only produced the album, but also played the keyboards and wrote the orchestrations. "A symphonic Jazz approach to Fado", is how singer-songwriter Maria Mendes describes the music on Close To Me. "It is not Fado," she immediately emphasizes. "I only used the music and poetry from this genre, but made a completely personal interpretation of it, with new arrangements.”