(Above: Violinist Anthea Kreston and guest artist, composer/pianist/vocalist Clarice Assad, interact during the Delgani String Quartet’s Soul of Brazil concert at the Wildish Community Theater; photo by Paul Carter.)
By Daniel Buckwalter
For a moment, look at some numbers, and then you can appreciate the enormity of Brazil.
Brazil, of course, is the largest country in South America. Its coastline along the Atlantic Ocean alone is 4,500 miles, and its borders touch every other country on the continent except Chile and Ecuador. It is the fifth-largest country in the world, larger than the contiguous United States.
It has a mishmash of cultures, too, ranging from the dominant Portuguese to Africans and a fragment of indigenous Indians with their languages and cultures. Together, they have given Brazil a creative force as well as a grand flair in music and visual arts — not to mention soccer — that has been emulated worldwide.
A touch of that festiveness was absorbed by a near full house on June 14 at the Wildish Community Theater in Springfield, when the Delgani String Quartet, along with Brazilian national and Chicago-based Clarice Assad, performed music by Brazilian composers Antônio Carlos Jobim and Heitor Villa-Lobos, as well as a one-movement piece Assad composed for Delgani that she nicknamed Glitch.
The concert, titled Soul of Brazil, had its long-awaited coming out party on June 12 in Portland, followed by another performance on June 13 in Salem. Originally scheduled for March 2020, and postponed because of the pandemic, there was a sense of warm relief that this performance was finally able to happen.
And it was fun from the start, with Jobim’s bossa nova Só Danço Samba (arranged by Assad) opening the concert. That was followed by Delgani — violinists Anthea Kreston and Jannie Wei, violist Kimberlee Uwate and cellist Eric Alterman — performing Villa-Lobos’ String Quartet No. 6 (Brazilian).
Historians have noted that this quartet, one of 17 that Villa-Lobos composed, has a strong Brazilian thread to it, but also has direct connections to the Viennese tradition of string quartet composition.
After intermission came Glitch, and then the appearance of Assad herself, singing two ballads and three up-tempo pieces.
A charming lady on stage, I left the June 14 performance with the feeling that Assad could be the life of any social gathering, no matter the language. Give her a piano and a microphone, and she can light up a room. It capped a fun night all around.
Assad and Delgani collaborated on recording a full-length album in the days before the three concerts, based on the music from the performances.
If the June 14 performance at the Wildish Theater is any indication, that will be an album worth buying.
