Nicolas Krassik & Cordestinos

Since 2001 the young French violinist, Nicolas Krassik, has established his career in Brazil. His quick integration into the Brazilian music scene resulted in the beginning of a promising solo career, and he has already played, performed and recorded with several renowned artists of MPB. In 2004 Rob Digital released his first solo cd, “Na Lapa”, which was followed by his second effort "Caçuá" in 2006 (- also at Rob Digital), both records commented earlier in this blog. Now the third solo album by Nicolas Krassik has been released just recently by Rob Digital with the title "NICOLAS KRASSIK & CORDESTINOS" (2008).

If the first solo cd, “Na Lapa”, presented Krassik's fascination with choro and related Brazilian music styles, the second effort, "Caçuá", showed off his growing interest in the traditional music styles of the North East of Brazil, mainly known as forró.

Forró is a kind of Northeastern Brazilian dance, as well as a word used to denote the different genres of music which accompanies the dance. Different genres of music can be used to dance the forró. Traditionally, all of these music genres uses only three instruments (accordion, zabumba (- a kind of bass drum) and a metal triangle). The traditional music used to dance the forró was brought to the Southeast from the Northeast by accordionist Luiz Gonzaga, who transformed the baião (a word originated from baiano and assigned a warm-up for artists to search for inspiration before playing) into a more sophisticated rhythm (- info excerpted from Wikipedia article about forró, more info to be found clicking here).

The third solo cd from Nicolas Krassik continues his exploration of the North East music genres.

On the cd Nicolas Krassik is accompanied by Marcos Moletta (rabeca), Guto Wirtti (bass), Carlos Cesar (percussion) and Chris Mourão (zabumba), the musicians making up the Cordestinos, one of his present ensembles. On some tracks there is guest performance by Yamandú Costa, Hamilton de Holanda, Carlos Malta and João Hermeto. As already mentioned, the repertoire is represented or inspired by the traditional music styles of the North East of Brazil, and on this cd Nicolas Krassik shows off his experience with not only the violin, but also his discovery of the rabeca - a traditional folk fiddle of Arab origins used in popular folk music traditions all over Brazil, most commonly represented in the Pernambuco region, North East of the country.

The sound of the rabeca is spruce and a bit darker compared to the violin, it may sound slightly out of tune, but maybe my ears are cheating me. However, Krassik has united with a master of the instrument, Marcos Moletta, and he also shows examples of his own mastering of the rabeca. The Cordestinos featuring Nicolas Krassik has altogether made a fascinating soundscape, and the cd is definitely recommended, if you like to explore the rich string tradition of the North East region of Brazil. Tracklist available by clicking headline or cd-cover shown above, more info about Krassik at his official website (- in Portuguese, French and English) including audio and video samples, click here - Nicolas Krassik also has a profile on MySpace, including audio and video, click here

To illustrate and to give you an impression of Nicolas Krassik & Cordestinos in performance I insert a couple of uploaded video examples. - Here's a recording of a live-performance recently

Finally, here's Nicolas Krassik & Cordestinos in a live TV-performance from a program hosted by Jó Soares

Jo