The second volume in the BIS Choros series (CD-1450) has been released, and it looks like a winner. It includes three big orchestral works that aren't as well known as they should be. John Neschling conducts the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Choros #6, #8, and #9, each of which is 20 minutes or longer.

Rounding out the disc is Fabio Zanon performing Choros #1 (by far the most-performed in the Choros series - there are scores of versions of this seminal work for guitar on CD, and hundreds of performances in concert and on YouTube.) The last little piece on this well-filled disc is the charmingly complex whatever-it-is, Choros #4 for three horns and trombone.

You'll have to wait for the disc to ship from Amazon and to show up on the Naxos Music Library. But there's no waiting at eClassical.com, where you can download the disc right now for US$7.95.

June 8, 2008 update: you now can pre-order this CD on Amazon.com:

Experiencing Villa-Lobos Conference Report

The important International Villa-Lobos Conference in Richmond VA held in March 2008 was a great success. Lee Boyd has sent a detailed report from Richmond, which I've posted on the Villa-Lobos Website. Thanks, Lee!

Wines from Brazil

I've been putting together information on the Marsalis Brasilianos project. I'll be posting about this exciting project soon.

In the meantime, I came across this note about the concert in Birmingham AL:

Free Prelude Musical Discussion @ 6 p.m. Enjoy a tasting of Brazilian wines prior to the show.

A very long time ago, before my life as a librarian, I used to work in the wine business. Since then, I've lost touch a bit with the new world of wines from the Southern Hemisphere. I love New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Hunter Valley Semillon, Argentina Cabernet Sauvignon, but I've never tasted wine from Brazil.

So I immediately spent some time at the excellent website Wines from Brazil. I'm learning about where they make wine in Brazil, who makes it, and where in the world it's exported to. Now I'm off to find out where in Alberta I can buy some bottles.



Here's a picture of a vineyard from the Serra Gaucha in Rio Grande do Sul in Southern Brazil, where 90% of Brazilian wine is made. The most important wine district is called “Vale dos Vinhedos”.

Calgary Concert on CBC Radio 2

A March 2008 Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra concert featuring Bach and Villa-Lobos will be played on CBC Radio 2 on Sunday, April 4th, on Bill Richardson's "Sunday Afternoon in Concert", beginning at 1 p.m. EDT.

I was really sorry to miss this concert, just down Highway 2 from my home in Red Deer. Conductor Roberto Minczuk [above, in a CBC picture from the concert] put together an excellent program, which included BB#5 (with soprano Donna Brown) and BB#7, along with a Bach cantata and a Brandenburg Concerto. Listen online to CBC Radio 2 here.

NEW: This concert is now available online on the fabulous Radio 2 website. I'm very impressed by this playing.

Baylor Concert and Lecture

Amarilis de Rebua is professor of voice at the Federal University of Paraíba, and an amazing singer to boot.

She shows off the latter in a concert at Roxy Grove Hall, on the campus of Baylor University, on April 30th. And as professor, she'll be giving a lecture the following day:

On Thursday, May 1, Rebua will discuss the works of 20th-Century composer Heitor Villa-Lobos as a part of the Global Issues Lecture Series from 4-5 p.m. in Recital Hall II of Waco Hall.

"Heitor Villa-Lobos is one of Brazil's most important classical composers of the early 20th century and a leader of the country's Modernist movement," said Dr. Lizabeth Souza-Fuertes, director of Latin American Studies. The concert and lecture will provide students with a rare opportunity to learn about Latin American classical music at Baylor, she said.

I haven't been able to track down any of Rebua's CDs online. This one looks especially interesting:

Heitor Villa-Lobos – Atualmente está gravando as obras completas para canto, tendo sido já gravadas 2 CDs num total de 45 Canções.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: May 2008

Here are Villa-Lobos performances upcoming on Cultura FM from Sao Paulo. Listen here on the Internet. Times are local Sao Paulo times, one hour ahead of EST.

May 1:
12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO-DIA com o Maestro Walter Lourenção:
Chôros n° 9 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS com o maestro Kenneth Schermerhorn e a Orquestra Filarmônica de Hong Kong.

May 24:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
VILLA LOBOS - Uirapurú. Orquestra Sinfônica da Paraíba. Dir.: Eleazar de Carvalho. / Edino KRIEGER - Prelúdio e Fuga. Beatriz Balzi (piano). / Claudio SANTORO - Vocalise. Bruno Wyzuj (baixo). Maria Lúcia Pinho (piano). / Marlos NOBRE - Convergências. Musica Nova Philarmonia. Dir.: Marlos Nobre. / Ernst MAHLE - Concerto para trombone e orquestra. (transcrição para piano). Wagner Politschuk (trombone). Káthia Bonna (piano).

12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção:
O pianista Paulo Emiliano Pía de Andrade é o solista das Bachianas Brasileiras n° 3 de Heitor VILLA-LOBOS.

May 28:
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações.
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Trio para cordas. /MOZART Camargo GUARNIERI - Trio para cordas. /Amaral VIERA - Quinteto para piano e cordas op.297
Ensemble Capricio.Chouhei Min (violino).Korey Konkol(viola).Mina Fisher(cello).Artistas convidos:Max Barros(piano).Willam Schrickel(contra baixo). [repeated May 29, 06:00]

May 30:
06:00 A ESCRITA DE CÂMARA - Solistas e pequenas formações:
Silvestre REVUETAS - Quarteto n° 4-Quarteto n° 2. /Alberto GINASTERA. Quarteto n° 1 op./Heitor VILLA LOBOS - Quarteto n°17. Quarteto Latino- Americano.

Quarteto de Brasilia

It was nice to come across the website of the Quarteto de Brasilia, a group established in 1986. The site isn't especially up-to-date, so there's no information about upcoming concerts, but the discography section shows the significant recording history of the group over the years. As a small bonus, there are short MP3 clips from each disc, including the 1st and 17th quartets of Villa-Lobos.

Sonora Brasil: Heitor Villa-Lobos

Here's a project that demonstrates the importance of Villa-Lobos to the musical life of Brazil today. It's called Sonora Brasil: Heitor Villa-Lobos, and it's a project of the Orquestra do Estado de Mato Grosso. The project will bring concerts built on the music of Villa-Lobos to 78 cities in 22 states.

Music will include Bachianas Brasileiras #4 and 9, Choros #5, Danças Características Africanas, Ciranda das Sete Notas, and Cirandas.

The tour begins in Rio de Janeiro on April 30th, and finishes in Jequié, Bahia, on August 1st.

Thanks to João Bosquo's blog for the heads-up on this.

Jules Dassin Dead at 96

Director Jules Dassin died yesterday at the age of 96.

Dassin, who is better known today as a Hollywood director (and Hollywood Blacklist victim) than a Broadway director, directed the Villa-Lobos Broadway Musical Magdalena in 1948.



My favourite films of Dassin are Rififi, Topkapi, and The Naked City.

The World of Villa-Lobos, in Kalamazoo

It's nice to see that conductor Raymond Harvey has included Villa-Lobos as one of three featured composers (along with Debussy and Rachmaninoff) in the "World of..." concerts in the coming season's Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra programme.


The World of…Villa-Lobos
Sunday, April 5 (2009) – 3pm Light Fine Arts Center (Kalamazoo College Campus, corner Academy & Thompson)
Raymond Harvey, Conductor
Raymond Harvey guides you through the life, times, and music of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Villa-Lobos combined the color, rhythms, and flavor of Brazil with classical structures to create an evocative and beautiful sound.

Conference Season

Villa-Lobos scholars are heading to the Southern U.S. in the week after Easter.

Richmond VA:
Virginia Commonwealth University will host an International Villa-Lobos Conference from March 27 to March 29. This is a big deal, both for its scholarly papers and the performances by such great performers as the Cuarteto Latinoamericano, saxophonist Albert Regni, and pianist Sonia Rubinsky. Watch for Villa-Lobos Magazine posts with the Experiencing Villa-Lobos tag for more information. The website of the Conference is here.

Chapel Hill NC:
Meanwhile, down Interstate 85 to the south-east from Richmond, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill presents Festival on the Hill 2008 - Transcending Borders: Latin American and Latina/o Music in North Carolina and the United States, March 27-30, 2008. This conference has a broader theme, but there are two important Villa-Lobos works on the program: Bachianas Brasileiras #5, and the Quintette en forme de Choros.

Y'all have a good time!

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: April 2008

Here are Villa-Lobos performances upcoming on Cultura FM from Sao Paulo. Listen here on the Internet. Times are local Sao Paulo times, one hour ahead of EST.


April 12:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
André MEHMARI - Variações Villa-Lobos. Opus Brasil Ensemble. /Edino KRIEGER - Choro Manhos./ Choro Seresteiro. Alexandre Dossin (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Bachianas Brasileiras no. 7. Orquestra Filarmônica Süwestfalen. Dir.: Ricardo Rocha.

April 19:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música:
Raimundo PENAFORTE - Sweet New Yor. Fernando Dissenha (trompete). Carlos Assis (piano). / Octavio MAUL - Tríptico. Balada. Miriam Ramos (piano). / VILLA-LOBOS - Francette e Piá. Lydia Kennedy e Frans vab Gurp (violões)

April 28:
20:00 AS MIL e UMA INTERPRETAÇÕES com Turíbio Santos:
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Choros n° 6. Orquestra Sinfônica da Petrobrás. Reg. Roberto Tibiriça.

O Descobrimento do Brasil

Here's something I've wanted to see for a very long time - it's from Humberto Mauro's 1937 film
"O Descrobrimento do Brasil":



There's a second part out there on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJmJ0UKQSFA&feature=related.

Unfortunately, though, no DVD or VHS available, or not that I could track down on the web. This is superb music, a very interesting subject, and an interesting film overall.

Villa-Lobos on Bartok Radio

I received this comment on my last post:

Bartok Radio (Hungary) Mar 8th 22:36

Villa-Lobos concert with Emmanuel Krivine conducting Orchestre National de Lyon

Bachianas Brasileiras No 2
Guitar Concerto (Roberto Aussel)
Amazonas

broadcast on the web.

Bartok Radio is a really interesting station that has a variety of web streams. Click here for the current playlist.

Here are the streams:
80 kpbs Windows Media
MP3 Stream
RealAudio Stream

Check out this concert on Saturday - Budapest is on Central European Time, so 22:36 is 21:36 Universal Time, 4:36 p.m. EST, and 2:36 in the afternoon here in Red Deer.

Zeppelins!

Gotta love the Internet - there are market niches out there you never would have thought of. A Portuguese-language blog on Zeppelins? Naturally!

A while ago on Tumbling Villa-Lobos I posted a small story on Villa-Lobos's Zeppelin trip across the Atlantic in 1936, coming home from the Congress for Musical Education in Prague. Now here's a story on the same topic: Dirigível no Brasil, from Projeto Blimp View One. Here's a picture from this interesting post, of the famous Hindenburg over Rio:

Dia da Música Clássica celebrations in Rio

There's lots happening in Rio de Janeiro this week, in celebration of the Dia da Música Clássica. Classical Music Day is celebrated on Villa-Lobos's birthday, March 5th. There's a complete list at the Portal VivaMúsica, or check out all the concerts on the Villa-Lobos Website.




By the way, Happy Birthday, Villa! He's 121 years old on Wednesday.

Missa São Sebastião in Toronto

Though their concert is called "Graçias a la Vida - The Gift of Spanish Song," the Victoria Scholars, a Toronto-based choral group, are fully aware of Villa-Lobos's Brazilian nationality. They'll be performing the Missa São Sebastião, an amazing but rarely-heard choral work by Villa-Lobos, on Sunday March 2, 2008 at 7:30pm, at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Toronto.

If you don't know this work, listen to excerpts from each of the six movements from the awesome Hyperion disc of Villa-Lobos choral works on the Amazon.com music sampler player featuring the Corydon Singers.

New Choros CD on BIS

I'm enjoying listening to the new BIS Choros CD , with pianist Cristina Ortiz, and John Neschling conducting the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra. This is the first disc in a projected BIS series of the complete Choros. Some people think that the series of 13 Choros (or 14 or 15 or 16) is Villa-Lobos's greatest group of works. I'm inclined to think so, myself.

This is my second post on this CD this month; today I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about the Naxos Music Library. People in Red Deer can access this excellent resource through Red Deer Public Library's subscription; check to see if your local public or academic library subscribes on your behalf. If not, you can always get a personal subscription; they're very affordable.

NML gives you access to more than Naxos and Marco Polo (as large as those two labels loom for Villa-Lobos lovers!) There are many, many independent labels on NML, like BIS (recently named the Label of the Year by Midem). It's great to be able to listen to this music even before the discs are available to buy. The new BIS disc hasn't showed up yet on the main BIS site, and isn't up on Amazon.com yet, though you can buy it at Presto Classical in the UK.

And Choros #11 is certainly worth listening to!

Speaking of pianist Cristina Ortiz, who also shines in this CD in the solo Choros #5 ("Alma Brasileira"), I've been checking out the Concert Diary on her website. She's certainly a busy pianist, and a great advocate of the music of Villa-Lobos.

She takes Bachianas Brasileiras #3 on a long, long road trip this spring, with stops in Ljiepaja Liepaja, Latvia for the 16th International Piano Stars Festival, in Riga, Talinn, Vilnius, Bergen and Palma, Spain.

Villa-Lobos on Cultura FM: March 2008

Here are Villa-Lobos performances upcoming on Cultura FM from Sao Paulo. Listen here on the Internet. Times are local Sao Paulo times, one hour ahead of EST.

Though the station that most consistently plays Villa-Lobos inexplicably misses out on Villa's March 5th birthday, there are some gems this month. There's a live concert from Sao Paulo on the 22nd (repeated on the 26th). And, on the 29th, an interesting bunch of works: Odisséia de uma raça (Odyssey of a Race, the 1945 work dedicated to the state of Israel), plus other rarely heard orchestral pieces: the 2nd Sinfonietta, the first Suite, and Elegia.

March 8:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: LORENZO FERNANDEZ - Batuque. Orquestra Petrobrás Pró Música. Dir.: Ernani Aguiar. /Cláudio SANTORO - Sonata no. 4. Elisa Fukuda (violino). Giuliano Montini (piano). / AMARAL VIEIRA - Toccata. Max Barros (piano). / Osvaldo LACERDA - Cançoneta. Duo Quanta. VILLA-LOBOS - Quinteto instrumental. Grupo Instrumental de Paris./ Prelúdio de Bachianas 4 / Modinha / Melodia Sentimental. Carlos Barbosa Lima (violão)

12:00 CONCERTOS DO MEIO DIA com o maestro Walter Lourenção: Roberto Duarte rege a Sinfonia n° 6, "Sobre a Linha das Montanhas do Brasil", de VILLA-LOBOS.

March 14:
22:00 SALA DE CONCERTO: ANTÔNIO MENEZES: Johann Sebastian BACH - Suíte n° 6 em ré maior, BWV 1012. Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). / Franz SCHUBERT - Sonata em lá menor para violoncelo e piano, D. 821 - Arpeggione. Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). Gilberto Tinetti (piano). / Robert SCHUMANN - Fantasiestücke, Op. 73 para violoncelo e piano). Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). Gérad Wyss (piano). / Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Fantasia para violoncelo e orquestra. Antônio Meneses (violoncelo). Orquestra Sinfônica da Galícia. Reg.: Víctor Pablo Pérez.

March 15:
23:00 NOTURNO: Heitor VILLA-LOBOS - Trio n° 3. Artistrio.

March 19:
07:00 DESPERTE COM OS CLÁSSICOS: VILLA-LOBOS - Canção de Amor, de "A Floresta do Amazonas". Bidu Sayão (soprano). Symphony of the Air. Dir.: Heitor Villa-Lobos/ SPOHR - Duo Concertante, op. 67 n° 2. Itzhak Perlman e Pinchas Zuckerman (violinos)/ VIVALDI - Concerto op. 8, n° 1 RV 269 " A Primavera " , de "As Quatro Estações". Itzhak Perlman (Violino). Orquestra Filarmônica de Israel. Reg.: Zubin Mehta/ DELIUS - On Hearing the first cuckoo in the spring. Orquestra de Câmara Inglesa. Reg.: Daniel Baremboim/ BEETHOVEN - 7 variações sobre "Bei Männern, welche Liebe Fühlen". Ronald Turini (piano). Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi (violoncelo).

March 22:
16:30 OSESP AO VIVO - Gravações exclusivas realizadas na Sala São Paulo: VILLA-LOBOS - Alvorada na Floresta Tropical. / TCHAIKOVSKY - Concerto n° 1 para piano em si bemol menor, Op. 23. Solista: Olga Kern. / BEETHOVEN - Sinfonia n° 3 em mi bemol maior, Op. 55 - Heróica. Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. John Neschling, regente.

The above concert is repeated on March 26, at 22:00.

March 29:
10:00 CIRANDA - Academia Brasileira de Música: VILLA-LOBOS - Odisséia de uma raça. Suíte no. 1 para orquestra de câmara. Orquestra Sinfônica do teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Dir.: Silvio Barbato. Elegie / Sinfonieta no. 2. Orquestra Sinfônica do teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Dir.: Silvio Barbato. / Saudades das Selvas Brasileiras. Anna Stella Schic (piano).

Villa-Lobos on the Marimba

This excellent New York Sun review of a recent New York City concert introduced me to the marimba virtuoso Makoto Nakura. The Villa-Lobos Etudes and Preludes for guitar sound like excellent candidates for transcription to this fascinating instrument. Unfortunately, they're not included in any of Nakura's CDs so far. Let's hope that's coming soon, though!



In the meantime, if you're close to upstate New York on March 2nd, check out this free concert at Binghamton University, part of the fascinating series South of the Border: Explorations, organized by the Binghamton Philharmonic's composer-in-residence Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez.