Unavoidable icons of the Lusophone music scene, Calema is much more than a simple musical duo. These two brothers from São Tomé-et-Príncipe conquered Portugal with titles like “Te Amo” or “A Nossa Vez”. They perform at the Sion festival under the stars on Wednesday July 16.
Sion under the stars celebrates its tenth anniversary. For this edition, the event notably programmed the Beach Boys, Michel Polnareff, Gims, Santa, Alice Cooper, Soprano, Helena, Stephane, but also Kaaris, Slimka and La Fouine, without forgetting the Lusophone Calema duo whose success begins to exceed the Portuguese borders.
>> Read also: Balance your tube: “te amo” from the Portuguese duo and Santomean Calema
From July 15 to 19, it is therefore an extremely rich and varied program that will resonate in Zion. Metal, French song, rap, but also Afro Pop will therefore be there to have the 15,000 spectators expected to dance and spectators dance and vibrate each evening. “We have a classic formula with a theme: a rock day, an urban music day, a French song day. Each day, the public is quite different. People come for one or two concerts,” said the founder of the Michael Drieberg event on the Vertigo show on July 10.
Exceed Lusophone borders
In Portugal, the two brothers who form the Calema duo are superstars. “They just made a stadium in Lisbon, in front of tens of thousands of people. Here, they have not yet exploded at this point, but I think that occurring in front of 15,000 people is part of a process to make a group known in Switzerland,” explains Michael Drieberg. He readily admits it, he who is also director of Live Music Production, Sion under the stars serves as a springboard for artists still little known in our latitudes with the objective for programmers to then fill rooms like Arena.
“For us it is an honor to be there (…) We spent three years in France, we participated in the show The Voice in 2012. Our goal was to learn the French language. (…) We try to show what we know how to do and we really hope to touch a French -speaking audience. We really think that our passage to Zion will allow us to make ourselves known”, underlines Fradique Mendes Ferreira, half of the duo Calema.
“Each festival has its DNA. For us, the right festival is the one where we see that people want to have a good time, where we feel a connection,” concludes the artist. Calema will therefore try to conquer the heart of the sedun public on Wednesday July 16, the evening when Gims, Santa and loves Simone will also perform.
Interview by Anne Laure Gannac
Adaptation web: ld
Sion under the stars, from July 15 to 19, 2025.
