Brasilialainen ilta  |  Helsinki, Finland

by Fabio de Oliveira

Hello! My name is Fabio de Oliveira, I’m a Brazilian guitarist living in Helsinki and I’m very excited to share some of my experiences around here. I’ve been involved in a few pedagogical projects and today I’m going to tell you a little bit about one of them: Brasilialainen ilta (Finnish for ‘Brazilian Evening’).

In August 2012 I started an internship at Meri-Helsingin musiikkiopisto, a private music school in the heart of the city. As you might have noticed, the Finnish language is not the easiest one, so the main goals of this internship were to develop my language skills and to learn more about the teaching system. Besides the normal school routine, I was responsible for organizing an event, in which Brazilian music was the theme.

After a couple of meetings with the school staff we decided to have the concert divided into two parts: the first one for the students and the second one for the teachers. My idea was to cover as many Brazilian music styles as possible by using the performers’ different levels and background. The preparation was quite intense but went really well, so we managed to build up a really interesting program.

Opening the concert, I performed with the piano teacher the choro “Odeon”, by Ernesto Nazareth. For the first part we had mostly children - piano and violin students - playing some arrangements and compositions by Tasso Bangel, which are based on traditional music and folklore. I was often visiting the lessons to play with the kids, talk about Brazil, the lyrics and sometimes even sing with them. One week before the concert we arranged a “dress rehearsal” for them, where everybody could get together and play their pieces for each other. Finishing the first part of the performances we had a very talented young student who wanted to play the famous Girl from Ipanema on the piano. He had a written arrangement of the song and it was really great to work with him, to make him think outside the score, explore the rhythms, experiment with improvisation, and end up with an improved version of it. Definitely a moment to be proud of!

 

Starting the second half, I accompanied the singing teacher on Villa-Lobos’ Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras 5. Following that there was a band formed by the teachers and me, playing music by Hermeto Paschoal, Egberto Gismonti, Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque. With these composers we could show other genres such as baião, samba and choro-canção. We rehearsed on weekly basis for two months and the result couldn’t have been better. The venue we got for the event had an excellent location and everything went really well. Around 300 people attended the concert, a bit above the capacity of the venue, proving that the event was a real success. I believe it had a good impact on the local community, many parents and Brazilians were asking right away when the next one is going to happen. After the concert, I organized a small reception for the audience with some traditional Brazilian snacks and refreshments.

Being in charge of everything from sound check to rehearsals and even food, can be quite handful and stressful at some moments, but it was definitely worth it and we are already planning the next one. If you happen to be around Helsinki on May 21^st you can check our concert at Espan lava. Hope to see you there!

LSO's 'Soundhub'  |  London, UK

by Fabricio Mattos

Hi everyone! I’m Fabricio Mattos, creator and artistic director of WGC. Together with collaborators Ogmundur Thor Johannesson and Fabio de Oliveira, we will bring in this blog some of the most exciting music projects that we know of.

I thought it would be nice if my first post was about some project in which I’m currently involved, and I've chosen a project of London Symphony Orchestra called ‘Soundhub’, based at St Luke’s, London. As they say in their website, through this project they provide a “flexible space where composers can explore, collaborate, and experiment, with access to vital resources, support from industry professionals and LSO players”. You can access their website here. 

Before I went there, on November 19th 2012, I only knew that it would be a collaboration with composer Emma-Ruth Richards in a piece she was composing for guitar and dancers, and try out some different stuff in an almost jam style, which is what we usually do in first meetings with composers... That's exactly what we did, with one difference: when I arrived at St. Luke's, it came as a  shock the view of what seemed to be dozens of dancers stretching on the floor (actually there were 14 or 15, but the shock...), cameras flying around, people making photos, and then I immediately thought: "oh no, I should have practised more!". Here you can feel a little bit the situation:

When the first shock was gone, it was possible to enjoy the rest of this first meeting, along with other musicians, photographers, choreographer and dancers, and, of course, composers. Emma-Ruth is one of the three members of the group of composers "Collective and Curiosities", and the other two composers wrote pieces for solo viola and solo voice. At the end of this first workshop, we've all (musicians and dancers) participated in a collective jam of improvisation only commanded by the sound of a gong, which meant dancers should change their partners. You can read a review of the event here and watch some videos of this first meeting here.

Even with the natural tension of first meetings, everything went very well, many ideas came up from improvisation. We have a second session booked for April 12th and the big concert on June 21st at St. Luke's. It's a really cool scheme of LSO, and more schemes such as this one, which provides structure and recognition for young composers to start an exciting work that wouldn't be possible otherwise, should be available for composers in many countries. I'm looking forward to the final event on June 21st, and if you live in London or know someone who does let them know, because it's going to be awesome!