Chestertown seems to have its own celebrities; those people everyone seems to know. And there’s a good chance that you’ll run into someone from Chestertown abroad, or in some far-away place.
The National Music Festival is no different. We are lucky enough to have professional and gifted musicians come to the Eastern Shore every year in late spring. The NMF has its own set of celebrities: familiar faces that re-appear at festival time to grace local stages and fill the old venues with new patrons. One of these favorites is the classical guitarist Camilo Carrara.
Camilo Carrara Both photos by Tiago Sormani
Camilo is a native of Poços de Caldas, a city in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. He comes to Chestertown every year specifically to perform and teach at the festival. This tradition began three years ago, when he met Richard Rosenberg, the NMF’s conductor, producer and artistic director, while Richard was in Brazil. The two hit it off and Camilo was invited to participate as a mentor.
Fast forward three years later, and Camilo is a name that is known throughout the festival circuit. Upon hearing that Camilo was to be featured in this profile, everyone to whom I mentioned his name had the same response.
“Oh, you’re writing about Camilo! He’s fantastic! We have tickets to hear him this week!” One does not acquire such a reputation without being both a talented artist and a genuine person. Camilo Carrara is indeed both.
As a part of the National Music Festival, Camilo is a mentor, working one-on-one with students in private workshops as a guitarist, coaching them on their performance pieces while passing along lessons he’s learned in his 35 years as a musician. Although he is humble about his English, he says music makes it easier to communicate.
“Music is a language,” he muses. “With the same alphabet, you can write both English and Portuguese. In the same way, you can use twelve notes and come up with so many different genres.”
Music and language are related in more ways than that, however. Both are best honed when started young. Camilo and his brothers were encouraged by their father to take up a musical instrument. At age ten, Camilo found himself taking guitar lessons, his brothers opting for the saxophone. From there, he said, the music took off. Playing came naturally, and he went on to study music at university.
Now, Camilo is not only a performer, but also a teacher, a composer and a producer of music. He works for an advertising company in Brazil, composing music for TV commercials as well for himself.
Most of Camilo’s work is directed towards what he describes as “sound branding”; a trend common internationally., and that is quickly catching on in Brazil. For those who are not familiar with the term “sound branding”, (as I was not), Camilo described it in a way we think of jingles for certain products. His example was the Coca Cola sound that is used in commercials. The term he used was “sound identity.” His job is to match the personality of the product with a short musical phrase that encompasses the essence of such. Europe, he says, has become good at this, as well as the U.S., and he is noticing a growing trend at home.
Music and identity seem to be a common theme when speaking with Camilo. Aside from sound branding, he enjoys projects that allow him to cater music to personality. He recalls one of his favorite commercials for Museu da Pessoa (People’s Museum} in São Paulo, which takes stories from community members and allows them to be compiled into one larger, composite story. Camilo originally wrote some music to accompany the exhibits. He also spoke of another festival in Brazil which he had taken part in for ten years prior to joining the National Music Festival. When asked how they compare, he admitted that the NMF was much warmer, and that the idea of walking around town and being followed by music was a much more welcoming atmosphere.
Sitting outside, explaining this, I began to see what he meant. Festival-goers waved hello to Camilo as they passed by, greeting him and saying how excited they were to hear him perform. I was fortunate enough to see him play with several friends of his from NMF, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that he is as welcoming on-stage as he is in person. Only Camilo would accompany a local blue-grass band with a jazz ensemble and his own masterful classicality. Each type of music has its own identity, and through music, Camilo expresses, you can find your own.
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