Guitarists Rogerio Souza and Edinho Gerber will be featured as Brazil Project performs at The Mainstay in Rock Hall, Maryland on Saturday October 1 at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $20. For information and reservations call 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
When they perform as Duo Violão Brasil, guitarists Rogério Souza and Edinho Gerber explore and expand on the musical possibilities of putting two guitars (violões) together. Drawing repertoire from composers such as Pixinguinha, Baden Powell, and Tom Jobim, they effortlessly navigate through many styles of 20th century Brazilian popular while showcasing original works and inventive arrangements.
On this fall tour Souza and Gerber renew a collaboration with virtuoso bassist, music educator and compatriot Leonardo Lucini who has settled in the Washington, D.C. area, and clarinetist, saxophonist and American ethnomusicologist Andrew Connell, PhD who teaches and performs from his base at James Madison University in Virginia.
Together they will play their unique arrangements of well-known jazz and Brazilian compositions in a variety of styles such as Bossa Nova, Samba, Choro and Baiao as well as their own original compositions.
A master of six and seven string guitars, Rogerio Souza is one of Brazil’s foremost musical ambassadors, best known for showcasing traditional Brazilian music, especially samba and choro. He is a pioneer in the style known as “choro novo” – innovative interpretations of traditional Brazilian instrumental music that remain true to the roots. He is a founding member of choro ensemble Nó em Pingo D’Agua and released six recordings with the group.
Souza has worked with greats such as Baden Powell, Paulinho da Viola, Sivuca, Ney Matogrosso, Altamiro Carrilho, João Bosco and Paulo Moura. He performs widely throughout Latin America, Europe, the U.S. and Asia. He has performed and led master classes and clinics on guitar and Brazilian music styles at Yale, Temple and James Madison Universities in the U.S.
As the son of a Brazilian mother and American father, guitarist and composer Edinho Gerber developed a rich musical vocabulary. He enlists the genres of choro, jazz, samba, and blues, as he searches for new points of intersection within his dual cultural identity. A staple in the Chicago music scene for many years, he performed with U.S. based Brazilian groups such as Som Brasil, Renato Anesi Trio and A Cor do Brasil and he led samba-jazz group Zona Sul. He has performed widely in the U.S., Russia and Japan. Gerber is preparing for the release of a debut solo album and is involved in an inventive cross-cultural collaboration with Ben Lamar.
Leonardo Lucini is a seven-string bassist, composer, and educator from Rio de Janeiro. He has performed with acclaimed international musicians such as pianists Alex Brown, Benito Gonzalez, and Federico Peña, and saxophonists Alex Han, Leo Gandelman and Raul Mascarenha. In the U.S. he leads Brazilian jazz band Origem. In Brazil, he has performed with well-known groups such as Nó em Pingo D’Agua and with saxophonist Paulo Moura. He has also led numerous university workshops in the United States.
Clarinetist and saxophonist Andrew Connell performs in ensembles ranging from jazz to classical chamber music to Brazilian chorinho. He has appeared at the Monterey, Montreux–Detroit, and San Francisco jazz festivals, and the Spoleto Festival USA and has performed with a long list of players in both jazz and Latin genres.
The Mainstay (Home of Musical Magic) is the friendly informal storefront performing arts center on Rock Hall’s old time Main Street.
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