Information about the wake “will be released later,” he added.
Gal Costa had to cancel a concert at the Primavera Sound festival in Sao Paulo last weekend after undergoing surgery in September to remove a nodule from her nasal cavity.
But she was expected back on stage: her website included two concerts in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro on December 17 and January 14.
Born in Salvador de Bahia and recognized for her chestnut hair and her seductive smile, Gal Costa was one of the leading figures in the tropicalista movement in the late 1960salong with other legendary singers like Gilbert Gil Y Caetano Veloso.
A controversial woman who, in 1985 at the age of 40, posed nude for the magazine Status (a magazine to Playboy of Brazil) to the surprise of the entire South American nation.
Mourning for Brazilian music
The unexpected news mourned the Brazilian art world, which honored her this Wednesday.
“I am very moved and saddened by the death of my sister Gal Costa,” Gilberto Gil, 80, tweeted.
The singer Maria Bethania, a friend of María da Graça Costa Penna Burgos, popularly known as Gal, highlighted the void she will leave for Brazilian music.
“I’m in shock, too sad. I never thought the day would come to talk to you about the pain of losing Gal. The Brazil that she enchanted with her unique, masterful voice, today, in its entirety, mourns her. Like me,” said Bethania , in a video shared on his Instagram.
In the streets of Rio de Janeiro, passers-by were also saddened by the departure of a music icon.
“She is a very important artist not only for me, but for Brazilians and the world. It is an irreparable loss. We need to cry, we lose Gal Costa, her voice, her joy,” he told the AFP Rose Maria Farias, a 52-year-old teacher.
President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted a photo on Instagram of him hugging Costa.
“Gal Costa was one of the greatest singers in the world, one of the main artists who carried the name and sound of Brazil throughout the world (…) Our country is losing one of its great voices,” he wrote.
Outside of Brazil, the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, paid tribute to “one of the richest and most diverse careers in Brazilian popular music.”
Gal Costa “leaves us with the eternal memory of half a century of songs,” she said in a statement.
The artist had a 17-year-old adopted son, Gabriel, whose interest in a more popular type of music inspired her latest album, from 2018, “A pele do futuro”.