The Weis Center will welcome Brazilian pianist and composer André Mehmari and his Trio on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the Weis Center Atrium.
The performance is sponsored, in part, by David and Clayton Lightman and family.
Rooted in the Brazilian music of his homeland, where he is the most prolific and extraordinary musician of his generation, he glides with ease into the realms of jazz and classical music as his ideas call for them.
He will debut a new trio with bassist Edward Perez and percussionist Rogerio Boccato as well as new repertoire inspired by nature. This performance is part of the Weis Center’s year-long Trees Series.
Having lived for over 25 years in the Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest), the tropical rain forest that stretches along the Atlantic coast of Brazil, his environment will again shape his music both in new compositions and arrangements of works by Tom Jobim.
From his youth, André Mehmari’s musical sensibility has known no borders, flowing freely between the worlds of Chopin, Scott Joplin, and Ernesto Nazareth. Now a renowned pianist and composer, he has forged a language of tremendous expressive power from the resources of classical music, jazz, and Brazilian music. He deploys his instinct for composition not only in the writing of new works and arrangements, but also in interpretation as he understands a composer’s intention, bringing its essence forward with clarity that often exceeds the original.
This skill is at the forefront of his trio recording, Na Esquina do Clube com o Sol Na Cabeça, devoted to the work of Clube de Esquina. Led by Milton Nascimento, this group of Brazilian artists blended ideas from pop, folk music, bossa nova, jazz, and classical avant-garde to create hymns honoring friendship and dialogue that are among the greatest treasures of Brazilian music.
André Mehmari is considered one of the leading musicians of his generation in Brazil. His activities as pianist, composer, producer and arranger are highly regarded in both popular and classical music. As his compositions have been performed by leading orchestras such as Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and Orquestra Filarmônica de Minas Gerais and chamber ensembles such as the São Paulo String Quartet, his career in jazz and Brazilian popular music has attained wide attention with performances in all of Brazil’s major jazz festivals and abroad.
Born in 1977 in Niteroi (RJ), he began to study music with his mother at the age of five and completed an organ course in the Conservatory of Ribeirao Preto (SP). At age ten, having taught himself jazz improvisation, he wrote his first compositions; and, at 15, while teaching organ in the Conservatory, he was invited to compose a method for keyboard beginners. The result was a 20-piece collection, a work greatly appreciated by young musicians and their teachers. Mehmari’s precociousness as a composer and multi-instrumentalist was well documented by the media. He began study at São Paulo State University in 1995 and, in the same year, won the University’s competition for original Brazilian popular music (MPB). Two years later, the same honor was awarded to him for classical music. Both his performing schedule and composing activity grew busier as he began touring and writing orchestral arrangements for major musical events. In 1998, he won the first national Prêmio VISA de MPB competition, the most important award for popular music in Brazil. The competition’s prize was the recording of a new CD, which became Mehmari’s first release and brought him concert opportunities throughout Brazil. More than fifty albums have followed.
TICKETS
Tickets are $15 for all adults and no discounts may be applied. Youth under 18 and BU students are free. Seating is general admission.
Tickets can be reserved by calling 570-577-1000 or online at Bucknell.edu/BoxOffice.
Tickets are also available in person from several locations including the Weis Center lobby (weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and the CAP Center Box Office, located on the ground floor of the Elaine Langone Center (weekdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.).
For more information about this event, contact Lisa Leighton, marketing and outreach director, at 570-577-3727 or by e-mail at lisa.leighton@bucknell.edu.
For more information about the Weis Center for the Performing Arts, go to Bucknell.edu/WeisCenter or search for the Weis Center on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.