One of the most reliable musical dates on the Tokyo calendar is Festival Konda Lota, now in its 10th year.

The festival usually presents a few established names and a few surprises. With a new star of Portuguese fado sharing the bill with one of Spain's greatest living flamenco singers, as well as native aboriginal singers from Taiwan and some jazz musicians from Paris, this year should be no exception.

Misia (not to be confused with the J-R&B singer of the same name) is one of the leaders of the fado revival. On the strength of her new CD, she could eventually succeed the queen of fado, Amalia Rodrigues, whose astonishing voice defined the music for nearly 60 years. Misia's last album, "Garras dos Sentidos," has already notched up sales of 150,000 in Europe, an unprecedented figure for a fado singer in recent years.

Fado, meaning fate, is a music of haunting beauty and intensity, and one of Europe's more conservative traditions.

There are two distinct strands: the more refined, exclusively male style of the university town of Coimbra, and the deeply emotional urban cafe style of Lisbon, that grew out of the African and Brazilian immigrant district of Alfama. This poor area was also birthplace to Amalia Rodrigues and the original, dramatic fadista Maria Severa, who started performing over 150 years ago.

According to Misia, who sings in the Lisbon style, but was born in Oporto to a Spanish mother and Portuguese father, the roots of fado can be found in Africa, Brazil and Moorish music, and perhaps English acoustic guitar introduced during Victorian times.

"It's the Portuguese blues," she says. "Fado singers are austere and minimalist, singing about the pain of life. It's often said 'You must live before you can sing fado.' "

Misia has not been afraid to challenge the tradition.

"I sing old traditional music but with new poetry," she says. "There was no movement for updating fado, but I had a different attitude. About 10 years ago, fado was not considered an intellectual thing, but I asked famous contemporary poets to write for me, such as Jose Saramago [Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1998].

"In the traditional fado way I sing about sadness, destiny or nostalgia, but instead of being unhappy and accepting this, the words I sing are also about being positive and happy. They are not conformist poems, but more social and political. People said 'don't touch the tradition.' Now I think I have respect, but at first they were afraid."

Misia grew up listening to all kinds of music, and cites her musical influences as Amalia Rodrigues, but also French music, flamenco and tango. "Guitar and bass is the traditional accompaniment," she says, "but I introduced accordion and violin. These instruments were originally played on the streets but not for recording."

Misia's ability as a singer lies in her ability to communicate the feeling of saudade _ roughly equivalent to the words longing or yearning, and common in other Portuguese-influenced music such as the Morna of Cape Verde and Brazilian Modinha.

Misia is keen to point out that although she loves Spanish flamenco, it is a mistake to assume that fado and flamenco share any connection. Indeed, the equally extraordinary voice of Carmen Linares, perhaps the greatest living female flamenco singer, conveys a different kind of emotion. Mysterious, profound, exhilarating and vibrant, the key word for flamenco is duende, a celestial quality whereby the singer is able to reach into the emotional psyche of the audience.

Carmen Linares began singing at an early age, and recorded her first album over 30 years ago. She has performed with Spain's "flamenco saint," El Cameron de la Isla and dancers Paco Romero and Carmen Mora. Although an upholder of the cante tradition, she is accompanied by guitarists from the Flamenco Joven or New Wave of flamenco, who develop the style with striking innovations.

Linares sings transfixed in concentration. Her whole body drips with feeling, her eyes are closed, her fists clenched. Her voice, deep and hoarse, pours out emotion, tearing into the abyss of her soul.

On recordings, most of the emotion present in the voice of Taiwan's Difang has been stripped by the addition of modern computerized rhythms, which have turned his voice into little more than an exotic decoration.

Difang, also known in Chinese as Kuo Ying-Nan and in Japanese as Hideo Kaku, is a 78-year-old aboriginal nut farmer and musician from Taiwan's Ami tribe. He is now the center of the world's first lawsuit brought by native people against Western musicians. His voice, together with that of his wife, Kuo Hsin-Chu, is probably one of the world's most recognized ethnic voices, but until quite recently the owners of those voices were anonymous.

Enigma sampled their "Elders' Drinking Song" or "Two Weeding and Paddyfield Songs" (depending on the source) on their major hit "Return to Innocence." The single reached No. 4 in the U.S., No. 3 in the U.K., won a Grammy for best World Music album and sold 5 million copies. In 1996, the song was chosen as official song of the Atlanta Olympics and broadcast by major U.S. television networks advertising the games.

Enigma originally licensed it in good faith from a French-released CD from Maison des Cultures de Monde. Various Taiwanese musicians signed a contract before their tour of Europe in 1988, during which the recordings for the album were made. The Enigma sample, however, was taken from earlier 1970s field recordings that were included on the French CD.

In 1995, a friend of Difang's in Taipei heard the Enigma track on the radio and telephoned him. Difang recognized his voice immediately. Since he had received no royalties, his case was taken up by a Taiwanese record label as not just an intellectual property case, but a violation of human rights. Four years later, the case has still to be resolved, but a suit is pending against production and recording companies, including EMI and Sony.

Belgian producer Dan Lacksman, who produced Deep Forest's first album, last year mixed Difang's voice once again with drum machines and synthesizers, making it sound remarkably like Enigma _ the exception being the final track, the orig-inal version of the song Enig-ma sampled, without any ad-ditions. This album, "Circle of Life" was, of course, made with the total cooperation of Difang.

Fortunately he won't be bringing drum machines to Tokyo, but he will be accom-panied by six other members of the Ami tribe and singing a cappella. The Ami culture has been passed down verbally through the generations, their songs an essential part of pre-serving the Ami rituals, sto-ries and history.