Death: A crowd bids farewell to Bino Branco to the sound of funaná, batuco and tabanca

Praia, 6 September (Inforpress) – A large crowd gathered today to bid farewell to Bino Branco, a musician with the Ferro Gaita group, whose body was laid to rest at the Várzea cemetery to the sound of funaná, batuco and tabanca, amidst tears and applause.

The Cape Verdean musician, singer, composer and instrumentalist Carlos Alberto Pereira Lopes, known as Bino Branco of the Ferro Gaita, who passed away on 27 August in the United States, where he had been receiving medical treatment for around a year, was laid to rest this afternoon, aged 56.

The funeral ceremony was attended by musicians from various strands of traditional Cape Verdean music, family members, friends, well-known figures and prominent figures from the cultural world, as well as supporters of the musical group Ferro Gaita, forming a vast crowd.

The coffin, which had been transported from the United States to Praia on Saturday evening, was accompanied from the musician’s home in the Calabaceira neighbourhood to the Várzea cemetery, in a procession accompanied by the music of Ferro Gaita, a group that Bino Branco founded in 1996, together with Eduíno and Paulino Preto, and which has become one of the icons of traditional Cape Verdean music.

SR/JMV

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