Alessandro Penezzi & Alexandre Ribeiro - Live

In 2009, guitarist Alessandro Penezzi and clarinetist Alexandre Ribeiro - both wellknown figures in choro circles of São Paulo and elsewhere in Brazil - started a partnership after a successfull performance in Denmark at Copenhagen Jazz House during a Brazilian festival featuring various Brazilian musicians.The duo recorded a CD in 2010 with the title Cordas au vento (- meaning 'strings in the wind' in English) containing  performance of 12 pieces, most of them new compositions by Alessandro Penezzi.

 

 

Click on cover illustration above to have more info on the Cordas au vento CD. The music featured at the CD was presented in a TV studio performance in Brazil, here is the titletrack

 

 

The duo had success with their partnership and the CD, which earned them a tour of both the USA and Europe in 2011 besides numerous live performances in Brazil. In October that year the duo had a concert in Holland at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam that was recorded and later issued on a CD in 2012.

 

The CD contains 13 tracks recorded live at the concert in the Bimhuis, Amsterdam, on October 28th, 2011. The repertoire has compositions from the Cordas au vento program as well as other pieces, mainly composed or recorded earlier by Alessandro Penezzi, click illustration above to have more info on the recorded tracks. - To give you an impression of the great music and performance contained in both the Cordas au vento CD and the live-recording from Amsterdam, I'll insert a couple more video fragments uploaded at YouTube. Unfortunately, there's only a single uploaded fragment from the Bimhuis performance available - the composition 'Heleninha chegando' by Penezzi

 

 

The first track on the live CD is the duo's version of Luiz Gonzaga's choro 'Araponga', this was also featured in the TV presentation of the Cordas au vento program mentioned above

 

 

Another classic choro composition, 'Famoso' by Ernesto Nazareth, is also featured in the live CD recording as well as in the TV performance from the Brazilian presentation

 

 

One of the highlights of the Bimhuis live concert is the duo's medley version of Garoto's 'Lamento do morro' and Sivuca & Oswaldinho's 'Um Tom para Jobim' - here from the Brazilian TV performance

 

 

The music performed both at the Cordas ao vento CD and in the live-recordings from Amsterdam is terrific examples of great musicianship as well as a guideline to new branches of Brazilian instrumental music with roots in choro and related genres. You have the opportunity to listen to both CDs in streaming audio at Alessandro Penezzi's official website, here . You can also listen to and buy the tracks from the live concert at Bimhuis here

 

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Jo