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.
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 21st you can check our concert at Espan lava. Hope to
see you there!
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