![]() “Aquarela do Brasil” was the main musical theme of the successful film Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam.Ĭompuesta en 1939, “Aquarela do Brasil” es una de las obras más representativas del Brasil, que reúne los elementos musicales de este género llamado samba exaltaçao, caracterizado por una melodía amplia y de gran orquestación. The popularity of this work grew to the point that is has been recorded by hundreds of artists from around the world, such as Frank Sinatra, Daniela Mercury, Carmen Miranda, Plácido Domingo, Gal Costa, Joao Gilberto, Elis Regina, among many others. So it has dimensions that are not only musical, but social as well.”Īquarela do Brasil is at the Vancouver Playhouse next Thursday and Friday (November 8 and 9).Composed in 1939, Aquarela do Brasil is one of the works most representative of Brazil, which brings together musical elements of the genre called samba exaltaçao (exaltation samba) characterized by a broad melody and large orchestration. Bossa nova took the great exuberance of Carnaval music from Rio and reduced it to very small, intimate elements for a hip, sophisticated crowd that was a new middle-class. At the time, Brazil was becoming a world power, and the centre for fantastic architecture with the building of Brasília. In the other direction, jazz was infused with the rhythmic complexity and nuance of bossa nova, which was the new cool. “In the ’40s and ’50s there was a fair bit of travel with American and European jazz artists going down to Rio, and that club scene began to percolate a style infusing the more traditional Brazilian styles with jazz harmony. “Some are more intimate, like bossa nova, a very smooth combination of samba, choro, and jazz. “We’ll be a nine-piece in all, plus Aché Brasil, working either as full ensemble or as subsets, depending on the styles,” says Ferreras. The other pieces are a combination of really lyrical elements of earlier sambas and choros.”Īudiences can also expect some jaw-dropping percussion-playing from the ensemble, which includes Afro-Cuban conga player Israel “Toto” Berriel, tambourine ace Liam MacDonald, Machado, and Ferreras himself. I also asked them to play and dance an Afro-Brazilian style called maracatu which is very popular in many regions. One is a regional dance from Recife where the Carnaval rhythm is frevo, which is very athletic, and done with little umbrellas. ![]() “I want to show a certain style of samba, new compositions by Celso, and also feature Aché Brasil, who are mainly known for capoeira and big-style samba, doing two other things. Sequences from Black Orpheus will be projected onto a screen at the back of the stage to enhance the presentation of Aquarela do Brasil, which covers a range of musical genres-not just bossa nova. ![]() So I talked to Celso Machado, to Jodi Proznick, Miles Black, and Aché Brasil, as well as other collaborators that I’d played with, and proposed to the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre that we do something special for the occasion.” “The two events had such a profound influence on world music for the rest of time, and I said I’d like to do a show to celebrate the variety of Brazilian music. “I was talking backstage at a gig with Tom Keenlyside about the anniversary, and the release a year later of the movie Black Orpheus with a soundtrack of samba and bossa nova, which took one of the top prizes at Cannes,” he says. As the show’s director, Sal Ferreras, points out, the song became a massive international hit, one of a series of major Brazilian cultural achievements in the late ’50s. Aquarela do Brasil draws inspiration from the richness and range of the arts in Latin America’s largest country, to mark the 60th anniversary of the release of João Gilberto’s bossa nova classic “Chega de Saudade”.
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