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Cliff Korman (keyboard), Jorje Amorim (percussion), Dionísio Santos (cavaquinho) and Chuck Wilson (flute) perform a chorinho honoring famous photographer Sebastião Salgado (far right) at the reception for his exhibition "Migrations" at the International Center of Photography.
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Choro, or "chorinho" (its diminutive name), is a traditional and beautiful instrumental music that is enjoying a revived popularity in Brazil and finally being discovered by world music lovers everywhere.
Older than Bossa Nova or Samba, Choro was born in Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, a result of mixing European forms with Afro-Brazilian rhythms. And of course, Brazilian musicians added their own instrumentation, mixing light percussion (like pandeiro) and the little 4-stringed cavaquinho, with wind instruments like flute, clarinet and saxophone.
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The Choro repertoire is rich in melody, harmony and rhythm, and delightfully manages to be both earthy and elegant at the same time.
Although it is music "of the people," from its very beginning it attracted the interest of well-schooled musicians, who evolved a classical three-part structure similar to a rondo form.
Some of the great choro composers and performers are Jacob do Bandolim (1918-1969) a master mandolim player, and Pixinguinha (1898-1973), a flute and saxophone player and an exquisite arranger and composer. Pixinguinha took the style to new heights, writing hundreds of choros with beautiful melodic lines, some of them so innovative that they sound modern even today, and his ideas influenced many of the more widely known Brazilian composers like Antonio Carlos Jobim. And there is choro written for piano, the most famous being by composers like Ernesto Nazareth and Chiquinha Gonzaga, whose works have attracted famous classical pianists like Arthur Moreira Lima.
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The New York Choro Project at a NYC restaurant: Rob Curto (accordion), Dionísio Santos (cavaquinho), Billy Newman (guitar).
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Grupo Saveiro performs chorinho: Carlos Almeida (guitar), César Vieira & Jorje Silva (percussion), and Dionísio Santos (cavaquinho).
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