Another Silvio Barbato Memorial Concert

Thanks to Marcelo Rodolfo at the Museu Villa-Lobos for this. What a star-studded line-up!

Concert in Memory of Maestro Silvio Barbato

A special concert in the Brazilian Senate will be held in memory of Silvio Barbato on July 9th in Brasília. Barbato was one of 228 people killed in the crash of Air France Flight 447 last month. The concert will include Bachianas Brasileiras #5, along with the National Anthem and Gounod's Ave Maria. This sad occasion will also be a chance to celebrate the musical legacy of a great conductor.

I'm planning my own private memorial: it's been a while since I watched the DVD of Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida de Paixao, for which Maestro Barbato served as Musical Director. It's a great blessing that, though we've lost a great musician there is some recorded music, and this great film, to remember him by.

Silvio Barbato

I was saddened to hear of the death of Brazilian conductor Silvio Barbato, who was aboard the Air France 447 flight which went down in the Atlantic earlier this week. A pupil of Claudio Santoro, Barbato conducted Santoro's Statues of Man at the 1990 re-opening of the Manaus Opera House. He was best known as the Musical Director of the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro.

Barbato was referred to as a Villa-Lobos champion in this sympathetic obituary in the Telegraph. He was music director for Zelito Vianna's 2000 film Villa-Lobos: Uma Vida de Paixão. The only Villa-Lobos recording I know of that Barbato conducted (besides the film soundtrack) is the 2006 Violão Sinfônico disc with Turibio Santos, which includes Villa's Introdução aos Choros.