Brazilian Mandolinist DANILO BRITO
with featured guest guitarist Carlos Moura
Sunday, May 23 @ 4:15 PM EST
Danilo Brito was born into a home that brimmed with love for some of Brazil’s greatest music. From the day he arrived from the hospital maternity ward, he heard his father play the mandolin and from the phonograph recordings of his country’s musical treasures, especially Jacob do Bandolim. He, too, fell in love with this music and the mandolin, beginning a journey, at first unconscious, to become both guardian and scion of Brazil’s musical innovations.
For his virtual return to Kerrytown Concert House, he will show the genius embodied in compositions by Pixinguinha, João Pernambuco, Ernesto Nazareth, Luperce Miranda, and Jacob do Bandolim; and show his voice both as interpreter and composer in the performance of his own works. Joining him will be the foundation of his various groups, 7-string guitarist Carlos Moura.
While live concert work has been made impossible by virtue of the pandemic, Brito has created another way to communicate his art. His new YouTube channel is filled with presentations, with both Portuguese and English subtitles, that introduce viewers to much of the foundational knowledge that he has gained in his journey. Started only one year ago, the channel now has more than 26,000 subscribers. As he told the audience in 2004 when winning Brazil’s most prestigious musical award, he continues “to take care of our music.”
“Playing for you here at Kerrytown Concert House, I feel as if I am playing for you in my own living room.”
– Danilo Brito, at his last KCH performance in September 2019
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Danilo Brito is an award-winning wizard of the mandolin and an authority in the art of playing choro. His repertoire spans more than a century from the birth of Brazil’s first national music to the major composers of Brazilian music to new compositions that expand the literature. His ability as a composer fuels his skill as an interpreter: He understands a composer’s intention and brings its essence forward with clarity that often exceeds the original. The result honors the composition and goes deeper into its soul. To create at this level requires virtuosity and musical wisdom that he earned in decades of playing with Brazil’s greatest choro musicians. Though he was born with the talent of a prodigy, many years of participation in rodas de choro, gatherings of musicians to play choro repertoire, taught him the literature and performance practices of one of the most challenging and beautiful musical genres. From this artistic incubator he has emerged with emotive power that transcends choro and elevates him to be one of the world’s most remarkable musicians. Audiences throughout the world continue to be touched by his work, united by the verve and structure of the original, and blossoming anew in the 21st century.
His most recent album, Da Natureza das Coisas (The Nature of Things), features new compositions of his own as well as interpretations of works by Brazilian composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos and guitarist Garoto. The album was recorded in the studio without headphones or editing with the musicians seated in a circle as in a rodas de choro. Songlines Magazine of the UK chose it for their Top of the World collection in 2020.
Carlos Moura is a 7-string guitarist, known in Brazil for accompanying singers and instrument soloists and notably skilled in choro, the first authentic Brazilian instrumental music.
The role of the 7-string guitar in Brazilian music is of great importance. It provides accompaniment for singers and soloists, both for rhythm and counterpoint as it has an extra low string.
Moura comes from a family of musicians. His mother is a seresta singer and his father, Joca 7 Cordas, was a highly respected 7-string guitarist himself who accompanied Brazilian instrumental music artists. Carlos became interested in the instrument in his early childhood and received his first lessons from his father.
Later, he studied at Fundação das Artes de São Caetano do Sul (São Caetano do Sul City Foundation of Arts) and with the choro 7-string master, Luizinho 7 Cordas.
He has accompanied soloists such as Canhotinho (Demônios da Garoa), Bombarda (Acordeon) and João Macambira (Mandolin) and singers such as
Cauby Peixoto, Paulo Maquês, Roberto Luna and Noite Ilustrada.
Now, at the age of 39, he is developing music with one of the greatest mandolin players of the world, Danilo Brito, with whom he recorded the albums Danilo Brito and Da Natureza das Coisas comprised of complex and sophisticated Brazilian instrumental compositions.
Brito said in interview that “Carlos Moura is his ideal guitarist. He is judicious, studious, respectful of the art and passionate about music. He is a now rare representative of the authentic Brazilian guitar accompaniment in popular instrumental music.”
