The Berkeley Choro Ensemble is a group of world-class East Bay musicians that made its debut in January 2010 at the Berkeley Public Library. The ensemble includes clarinetist/saxophone player Harvey Wainapel, flutist Jane Lenoir, guitarist Carlos Oliveira, and percussionist Brian Rice.
This is the group’s first concert of the year, with some new repertoire from Brazil, and a preview of their upcoming featured concert at Music in the Mountains Spring Fest in Nevada City, CA.
Bring something to eat or drink! Great music and lots of fun!
Saturday, 14 April 2012 7:30 pm The Center for the Arts Nevada City, CA Admission: $25
Berkeley Choro Ensemble celebrates Music in the Mountains’ 31st Anniversary with Viva Brasil!, a concert and dance party featuring guest guitarist Ricardo Peixoto and local dancers.
Chico, released in July 2011 by Biscoito Fino, is Chico Buarque’s first album with new compositions since Carioca (2006). Rádio Educadora FM of Bahia broadcast it four days ago on its Especial da Seis program. The good news is that the program is available for online listening on the station’s extensive audio archive.
To find out more about the CD Chico, read Kees Schoof’s review in Música Brasileira.
Brazilian copyright law releases intellectual property 70 years after the author’s death. Thus, the works of Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847–1935) fell into the public domain in 2005. This occurrence, however, did not automatically make the compositions accessible that year. Of the composer’s vast body of work, only about 12 scores were commercially available.
For more than three years, they hunted for sheet music in libraries and private collections. By 2010, with the help of Instituto Moreira Salles, they had managed to accumulate over 300 scores of Chiquinha Gonzaga compositions. These have just been published on the Chiquinha Gonzaga website under the name Acervo Digital Chiquinha Gonzaga.
The compositions range across a vast spectrum of genres, including valsas, tangos brasileiros, canções, polkas, fados, habaneras, romances, duets, baladas, marchas, religious tunes, serenatas, barcarolas, modinhas, gavotas, mazurkas, dobrados, and choros.
On the website, the tunes are arranged alphabetically by title and can also be searched by title, genre, or instrumentation. Each one is accompanied by background notes written by Edinha Diniz, author of Chiquinha Gonzaga: Uma História de Vida. Many include guitar tabs and lyrics.
This heroic effort is merely the first phase in the project to resurrect the composer’s complete body of work. Braga and Dias hope to follow it up by including Chiquinha Gonzaga’s hundreds of stage tunes.
Dias and Braga at the launch party in Rio, 18 Oct. 2011
This is the invitation for the opening party of my new TV series ”No Compasso da História”—Brazilian history, told by Brazilian music. It’s an old project of mine that has finally come true, with the help of the mayoralty of the city of Rio. It’s a series of 15 documentaries, and we’ve spent the last 18 months working hard on it: 500 years of History and over 150 songs! It will be aired both on TV and in public schools.
I know you probably won’t be able to make it to the party (it’s a shame you will miss the mayor’s speech... :-)) but I wanted to let you know about it, anyway, as I’m so proud of the work we've done.
On 10 June 2011, João Gilberto celebrated his 80th birthday. To commemorate the occasion, Cultura Brasil has produced a series of audio documentaries titled Retrato de João. Each program is one-hour long. Two programs are already online, and a third is to follow.
The programs are based on interviews with the likes of Ruy Castro, Zuza Homem de Mello, Roberto Menescal, Miúcha, Moraes Moreira, Oscar Castro Neves, and João Donato. They also include reminiscences by his contemporaries Carlos Lyra, André Midani, Durval Ferreira, and Tito Madi. There are also testimonials by Bebel Gilberto, Gal Costa, and Paulinho Boca de Cantor and Luiz Galvão of Novos Baianos.
Interspersed among the reminiscences are many of João’s seminal recordings.
