Brazilian Piano Festa, samba jazz trio and symphony orchestra music, a world premiere and dozens of unknown (in Bulgaria) works – these are just some of the surprises during the second “autumn” concert series. The “summer” series took place in June and July.

It should be noted that this is the first time the festival of Brazilian piano music is taking place in this country. The idea belongs to Nara Vasconcelos Barreto – a Brazilian pianist who has been living in Bulgaria for 10 years, and who is at the heart of many of the events which present Brazilian culture in this country, and Bulgarian culture in Brazil. She is director of the Instituto Cultural Zenon Barretowhich is organizer of the event, with partners the Pancho Vladigerov National Academy of Music, the “Friends from near and far” project of the “Culture, media, communications” association, the Ministry of Culture and the embassy of Brazil in Bulgaria.

Here is Nara Vasconcelos with more about the programme and the performers:

The concert series begins with Concerto Carioca No. 2 by Radamés Gnattali for samba jazz trio and symphony orchestra. Together with the pianist from Brazil Diogo Monzo, the trio also includes Alex Atanasov (double bass) and Simeon Simeonov (drums). They will perform with the Academic Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mila Pavlova who is a university student. On 7 November the outstanding musicians Atanas Krastev and Victoria Vasilenko will present works for cello and piano by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Claudio Santoro, Camargo Guarnieri etc. November 11 is Contemporary Brazilian Piano Music Night with the participation of students from the National Academy of Music and Diana Rahneva who teaches at the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music. Ilina Ilieva and Nona Krincheva will be performing viola and piano works on 18 November at the Boris Christoff Museum. The festival ends with four recitals by Prof. Rostislav Yovchev entitled “Brazilian Piano Festa” in Plovdiv, Varna and Pazardzhik, and on 25 November at the National Academy of Music in Sofia.

There is another interesting festival Mrs. Vasconcelos helped organize – the 4^th edition of the “Week of Brazilian cinema and culture” from the 4^th to the 10^th of November. Admission to both events is free.