Nicolas Krassik

Recently my friend, Hans, co-editor of this blog, pointed me to a cd by the young French violin player, Nicolas Krassik, who has excelled his skills in both classical and jazz. However, Krassik also was attracted to Brazilian music and in 2001 he decided to settle in Rio to expand the possibilities of an engagement with the rich musical traditions of Brazil. As a result of this engagement Rob Digital released a cd in 2004 featuring Nicolas Krassik, 'Na Lapa' (Rob Digital, RD066), a marvellous example documenting Krassik's deep involvment with and capacity to use his talents within various Brazilian music idioms, choro as well as other notable genres.

On the mentioned cd Krassik is accompanied by well known Brazilian musicians, João Bosco, Beth Carvalho, Yamandú Costa, Hamilton de Holanda, Carlos Malta, Daniela Spielmann, Chico Chagas, Samuel DeOliveira, Gabriel Grossi, Henrique Cazes a.o.. The repertoire of the performance has compositions by choro superstars like Pixinguinha, Jacob do Bandolim and Garoto, and Krassik also pays his dues to renown Brazilian violinist Fafá Lemos in a performance of Lemos' "Fafá em Hollywood". The performance of the various recorded tunes is great, I highly recommend this cd as a splendid example of contemporary choro and choro related music performed by very skilled musicians in a most enjoyable way. Luckily, Krassik continues his career in Brazil and has just released another cd, 'Caçuá', that further documents his deep involvment with the musical traditions of Brazil. I haven't had the opportunity to listen to this release so far, but I am looking forward to do so in near future.

Learn more about Nicolas Krassik and listen to audio samples from his output at his official web site (- in French and Portuguese only, yet), click here

I found a video performance on YouTube featuring Nicolas Krassik on violin, enjoy it!

Jo