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The Brazilian Acoustic Ensemble at BEA - Brazilian Endowment for the Arts
Courtesy of Fernanda Pereira | Posted on May 30, 2011
Where
BEA - Brazilian Endowment for the Arts
240 E 52nd St.
New York, NY
Map
When
Fri, June 24, 2011
8:00pm
At Door
Save the date
Musicians
Billy Newman
guitarAbout
The Brazilian Acoustic Ensemble is a group that is dedicating itself to the performance of varied instrumental music from many parts of Brazil. It is a quartet close to the style of the "regional," a typical arrangement of instruments one can find in Brazil for the performance of choro or for the purpose of backing up a singer.
As great a music bossa nova is, as the most commercially successful it has dominated the small amount of Brazilian music that reaches American ears. This ensemble has made it a commitment to explore the richness of other forms of Brazilian music and bring a different palette of emotion and color to it's audience. Through the various genres of music, different images of Brazil are conveyed. There is the pulse of the smaller cities, the Moorish influence (a la Portugal and Muslim West Coast Africa), the highly modern urbanity emitted by the wide intervals in modern choro. There is the impossibly bright racing frevo, carnival music that in a small ensemble rivals jazz in its twisting sense of musical line and rhythmic forward motion. There are the archaic European dance forms that have been perked up and re-africanized by Brazilian Northeast laborers such as xote (somewhat related to the European "Schottish"). All these contrasts both serve to educate audiences and serve as a springboard for improvisation and artistic expression for each individual member of the ensemble....