Egberto Gismonti
Egberto Gismonti ( born December 5, 1947 in Carmo, State of Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian musician. He is a composer, pianist, guitarist, accordionist and Sanfona player and flautist. His work is not fixed to a certain direction; blending jazz and new music with Brazilian music.
Life
Gismonti was born the son of a Lebanese and a Sicilian. He comes from a musical family: his grandfather and his uncle already initiated Orchestra. The age of five he began his parents' wishes to learn to play the piano. Besides, he also played flute, clarinet and guitar. His skills on the various, even genuinely Brazilian guitar styles such as the Violão, he acquired self-taught. After he had learned classical piano for 15 years in Rio de Janeiro in Nova Friburgo, he received a scholarship for classical music in Vienna, which he turned down, however, to devote himself to the popular music. In 1968 he published his composition O Sonho, which was interpreted by Os Três Morais. A little later he went to France and studied composition and orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Jean Barraqué.
Gismonti wrote in the aftermath of songs for Marie Laforet. His first album Egberto Gismonti 1969 was still influenced by the bossa nova. Only on the album Orfeo novo he presented himself as an instrumentalist. Since 1973 he has played a achtsaitige Special guitar, including among recordings and concerts with Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis, Paul Horn or Cal Tjader.
Gismonti was very successful on the international market: The well-established together with the Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconcelos Album Dança the Cabeças ( "Dance of the minds" ) sold over 200,000 copies. He entered at international festivals such as the Berlin Jazz Festival or the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and was repeated not only with Vasconcelos and own groups, but also with Jan Garbarek, Charlie Haden, Ralph Towner, Collin Walcott and L. Shankar on tour.
Furthermore, he also worked with Elis Regina, Quincy Jones and Hermeto Pascoal, and later with Maria Bethânia, Marlui Miranda, Wagner Tiso and Yo- Yo Ma.
In order to have more freedom for his music, Gismonti 1978 founded his own record label Carmo, which also makes a lot of his old productions accessible again, initially released only in Brazil, France or Italy. He took since the mid- 1970s to Manfred Eicher's ECM label for. In 2006 he completed his recordings of orchestral works around the suite Sertoes veredas with the Cuban Camerata Romeu, at the same time he was playing with his son duo Alexandra Saudações one.
Services
The multi-instrumentalist Egberto Gismonti brings in his compositions " folklore, modern chamber music and jazz to the denominator of a completely independent music." According to Martin Kunzler he is " his creativity and originality because as a modern successor of Heitor Villa- Lobos. "
Awards
1977 Gismonti was awarded the German Record Critics' Award for Dança the Cabeças, which was honored in the American magazine Stereo Review Album of the Year.