"Girl from Ipanema" Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto dies

Together with her husband, she made bossa nova famous all over the world. Now the Brazilian singer Astrud Gilberto has died at the age of 83.

The Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto has died. She died at the age of 83 in her home in Philadelphia (USA), TV Globo reported on Tuesday, citing the singer's daughter-in-law, Adriana Magalhães. "She died in the house she loved and where she painted her pictures. It's a house full of her artwork, a thousand paintings. She died the way she wanted to. At this point, she left us in peace," said Magalhães.

With her husband, the Brazilian music legend João Gilberto, she made bossa nova famous all over the world. The "new wave" of Brazilian music was a modern mixture of samba and jazz. Astrud Gilberto sang the song "Girl from Ipanema" in English, which was later interpreted by numerous artists, including Frank Sinatra.

Astrud Evangelina Weinert was born in Salvador da Bahia in the north of the country in 1940, the daughter of a German immigrant and a Brazilian woman. She moved to Rio de Janeiro with her family as a child. In 1959, she married João Gilberto and was soon performing alongside her husband and artists such as Nara Leão, Johnny Alf and Elza Soares. In 1963, she sang "The Girl from Ipanema" in a studio in New York. Shortly afterwards, her marriage to João Gilberto ended in divorce.

In the decades that followed, Astrud Gilberto made a name for herself as a musician, gave concerts all over the world and was often referred to as the "Bossa Nova Queen". Only in Brazil was she never properly appreciated.

SDA