Surma Concert | New York

The Arte Institute proudly supports Surma’s performance at The Record Shop in Brooklyn, New York, on October 8th. This marks Surma’s debut as a trio in the USA, accompanied by the talented Pedro Melo Alves and João Hasselberg.

Débora Umbelino is 24 years old and its known by its artistic name ‘Surma’. She was born in a small town near Leiria, Portugal and started having some musical adventures soon. While studying in the high school she won a band contest ZUS! with her first band ‘Backwater and the Screaming Fantasya’.

Lately she started her solo project and soon started touring and having attention from the national media. She attended a jazz course in Hot Club Lisbon, specialized in double bass and vocals. Later started an audio-visual post-production course in Restart.

The release of her first album ‘Antwerpena’ earned the immediate attention of the media and great national festivals. In the last two years she had 200 shows through 16 different cities around the world. From the North-American South By South West to the NYC Indie Week, from the Dutch Eurosonic Noorderslaag to the French MaMa Festival, from the Icelandic Iceland Airwaves to the Brazilian SIM São Paulo, from the Austrian Waves Vienna to the German Das Fest and from the Spanish ARN to the Slovenian Ment. Her album was edited in several European countries, nominated for best independent album by IMPALA (Independent Music Companies Association) and got featured in high reputation media companies such as BBC, Musikexpress or NPR.

Also, in this two years Surma played in small and large venues and festivals such as NOS Alive, Vodafone Paredes de Coura, Bons Sons, Super Bock Super Rock and NOS Primavera Sound. Collaborated with several artists and other musical projects such as ‘Concerts for Babies’ and wrote some songs for the soundtrack of a Portuguese movie a ‘SNU’.

In the end of 2019 Surma released an EP where she revisits her first songs written as a solo artist and prepares a second album with new songs.

Support: Arte Institute

Patrons – Arte Institute: Camões – Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua | Fundação Luso-Americana – Para o Desenvolvimento | Caixa Geral de Depósitos | Câmara Municipal de Cascais

Partner – Arte Institute: Pestana Hotel Group