Um Momento de Puro Amor :: Live in Brussels (PAL)

Description

JORGE ASSAD was born in 1924 in São João da Boa Vista, a small village in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. His interest in music began at age 17 when he won a cavaquinho (a small guitar with four strings) at a raffle. He quickly taught himself how to play the instrument and joined other musicians to play the traditional music from Rio de Janeiro called chôro. Through most of his life, Jorge Assad, worked as a watchmaker but music has remained his great passion. In the 1950S, he worked part-time as a mandolin player for a radio station ensemble in the small town of Mococa, where his children – Sérgio and Odair – were born. Jorge encouraged the boys to study music while they were still quite young and after a couple of years of guitar playing they were ready for further studies. Jorge Assad moved the whole family to Rio de Janeiro so that the two brothers could advance their guitar studies under the guidance of Monina Távora, a former student of Andrés Segovia. After the Assad brothers started their career, Jorge Assad moved back with his wife, older son, and daughter to São João da Boa Vista. There, he helped start the career of his daughter. Jorge continued to work as a watchmaker and as a guitar teacher for young guitar players. He retired in 1993 but still teaches talented youth the guitar in the traditional called chôro.

ANGELINA “ICA” ASSAD was born in 1930 in Andradas, a small village in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. From early childhood, she demonstrated great skills as a singer in church and school choirs. Her dream was to play the piano, but her family could not afford one. Instead, she cut out magazine drawings of the piano keyboard and pretended she was playing it. In 1947, Ica married Jorge Assad and had four children : Jorge, Sérgio, Odair and Badi. She has always been a great enthusiast of her children’s careers and played a significant role in their musicianship. Hers was the first voice they heard singing as she did her house chores. She joined her husband in a chôro ensemble as a singer for a weekly radio show during the 1950S. Ica has maintained the Assad’s home as a place for musical gatherings where amateur musicians join the family for the pleasure of playing music together. She has an exceptional voice that maintains a youthful quality. Her singing style reflects the golden age of Brazilian female singers from the 1950S and 1960S such as Angela Maria, Dalva de Oliveira, and Dolores Duran.

CLARICE ASSAD is the oldest daughter of Sérgio Assad. She is a pianist, vocalist and composer who has been performing and composing music since the age of seven. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1978, she has led an active performance career in Brazil and Chicago, performing both original compositions and her own arrangements of Brazilian songs and jazz standards. Her work is lauded for its fluid blending of classical music and chamber jazz, subtly infused with her native rhythms. Clarice’s compositions are often inspired by a theme, a story or an object. She purposely tries to illustrate the physical and psychological elements of that theme in her music. Her works have been commissioned by Carlus Mathus for the play A Lição de Anatomia, by Lou Fancher for the ballet Steps to Grace, by Sérgio Assad and Gabriele Mirabassi for the piece Flutuante for guitar and clarinet, and by Byron Fogo for Valsas do Rio for two guitars. Clarice holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Roosevelt College for the Performing Arts in Chicago and a master’s degree also in composition at the University of Michigan. Honours include the Ostrowsky Award by the Liberal Arts Department at Roosevelt University for her composition Dark Pages, and the National Dean’s List Award, the most prestigious publication in the country recognising gifted students.

CAROLINA ASSAD is the oldest daughter of Odair Assad. She was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1979. Although she showed great musical skills from childhood, she decided to study physiotherapy at the Centro Universitário Moacyr Bastos in Rio de Janeiro, where she graduated in 2002. During her university years, Carolina joined the school’s symphonic choir, where her beautiful and natural voice found a renaissance. As a member of the choir she appeared in prominent concert halls in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In 2000, she joined the chamber choir Madrigal Moacyr Bastos and has frequently appeared as their soloist. In the past couple of years, she has returned to music by furthering her studies of the keyboard, harmony, and percussion. Carolina is a natural singer with a very colourful and expressive voice, which is well suited to Brazilian music.

RODRIGO ASSAD is the 21-years-old only son among Sérgio Assad’s three children. Although he shares his family’s passion for music, Rodrigo’s main interest has been filmmaking, and he is currently studying cinematography at Columbia College in Chicago. As a young child, Rodrigo sang in a children’s choir that was professionally recorded by EMI and Som Livre in Brazil. Growing up in a musical family, Rodrigo taught himself how to play the guitar and at age 17 started writing his own songs. His music is inspired by the most recent Brazilian artists who have created a new approach to MPB (Brazilian popular music). In the past couple of years, Rodrigo founded his own band in Brazil called Soul Brazuca and has been experimenting with his own compositions.