CAL PERFORMANCES

Friday, May 15, 2015, 8pmFirst Congregational Church

Sérgio and Odair Assad, guitars

PROGRAM

Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) “Córdoba,” from Cantos de España,Op. 232 (1896)

Enrique Granados (1867–1916) Ocho Valses Poéticos (1886–1887)

I. Vivace molto MelodicoII. Tempo de Vals noble

III. Tempo de Vals lentoIV. Allegro humoristicoV. Allegretto elegante

VI. Quasi ad libitumVII. Vivo

VIII. Presto

Ástor Piazzolla (1921–1992) Selections from Suite Troileana (1975)

I. Bandoneón II. Zita

Sérgio Assad (b. 1952) Tahhiyya Li Ossoulina (2007)

INTERMISSION

PLAYBILL

PROGRAM

João Pernambuco (1883–1947) Interrogando (1929)

Américo Jacomino (1889–1928) Abismo de Rosas (1905)

Aníbal Augusto Sardinha (1915–1955) Medley:

Jorge do Fusa (1952)Gente Humilde (1945)Lamentos do Morro (1950)

Dilermando Reis (1916–1977) Dois Destinos (1948)

Baden Powell (1937–2000) Tempo Feliz (1966)

Egberto Gismonti (b. 1947) Palhaço (1987)

Gismonti Baião Malandro (1987)

Paulo Bellinati (b. 1950) Jongo (1978)

Cal Performances’ 2014–2015 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

CAL PERFORMANCES

PROGRAM NOTES

Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909)“Córdoba,” from Cantos de España, Op. 232

Composed in 1896.

Isaac Albéniz, a seminal figure in the musicallife of his native Spain, was born in 1860 inCamprodón, in the northeast corner of thecountry, very near the French border. Helearned the piano from his older sister whenhe was still an infant, and gave his first con-cert at the remarkable age of four. (Some ac-cused him of being a dwarf.) In 1867, hismother took him to Paris, where he studiedfor nine months with the noted pedagogueAntoine-François Marmontel, but he was re-fused admittance to the Conservatoire be-cause of his age. Back in Spain, Albéniz touredCatalonia with his father and sister before thefamily moved in 1869 to Madrid, where hewas enrolled at the Conservatory and ap-peared frequently in concert. At age ten, theprecocious Isaac ran away from home tonorthern Spain, living by his wits and his tal-ent and astounding his auditors by playingwith the backs of his fingers while facing awayfrom the piano. The death of his sister broughthim home temporarily, but he again fled,heading this time for Cádiz, where the localgovernor threatened to return him to his fam-ily. Panicked by the thought, he stowed awayon a steamer bound for Cuba. The passengerslearned of his plight and took up a collectionto pay his fare, but only enough money wasraised to get him to the ship’s first stop,Buenos Aires. There he lived hand-to-mouthfor a while, but he soon found work playingin cafés and eventually undertook a serendip-itous concert tour through Brazil, Argentina,Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the UnitedStates, traveling as far as San Francisco, beforesaving enough money to sail to England formore appearances. He ended up in Leipzig forsome study at the city’s conservatory withJadassohn and Reinecke.

Albéniz returned to Madrid in 1877 justlong enough to secure a royal scholarship for study at the Brussels Conservatory. After

winning the school’s first prize for piano in1878, he took a few lessons with Franz Lisztand began another long tour of SouthAmerica and the United States in 1880. In1883, he returned to Barcelona to play andteach, and there met Felipe Pedrell, the com-poser and pioneering scholar of Spanishmusic, who inspired him to use native songsand dances as the basis of his original compo-sitions. Albéniz married one of Pedrell’s stu-dents in 1883, and he moved to Madrid twoyears later, but found life as a pianist in Spaindifficult, and again went abroad to further hiscareer. He gave a concert of his own composi-tions in Paris in 1889 to much acclaim, andthere met such prominent musicians asd’Indy, Dukas, Fauré, and Chausson.

From 1890 to 1893, Albéniz lived inLondon, where he abandoned piano playingin favor of composition. He settled in Paris in1893, composing, renewing friendships, andteaching piano at the Schola Cantorum. Thedeath of his mother in 1900 brought him backto Barcelona, but his own ill health (he suf-fered for years from kidney disease) and hisfailure to arrange performances of his workssent him again to Paris in 1902. A year laterhe moved to Nice, and there wrote his mas-terpiece, Iberia. Just one week before his deathon May 18, 1909, at Cambô-les-Bains in theFrench Pyrenees, he was awarded the GrandCross of the Legion of Honor by the Frenchgovernment. Enrique Granados brought thenews to his bedside.

Among the most characteristic of Albéniz’scompositions are the five Cantos de España(“Airs of Spain”) for solo piano (1896). In hisstudy of Spanish music, Gilbert Chase wroteof Córdoba, the fourth of the Cantos, “Albéniztakes the guitar as his instrumental model,and drawing his inspiration largely from thepeculiar traits of Andalusian folk music—without using actual folk tunes—he achieves astylization of Spanish traditional idioms that,while thoroughly artistic, gives a captivatingimpression of spontaneous improvisation....Córdoba is the piece that best representsAlbéniz in this period, with its hauntingly

PLAYBILL

PROGRAM NOTES

beautiful melody, set against the acrid disso-nances of the plucked accompaniment imitat-ing the notes of the Moorish guzlas. Here isthe heady scent of jasmines amid the swayingpalm trees, the dream fantasy of anAndalusian Arabian Nights in which Albénizloved to let his imagination dwell.”

Enrique Granados (1867–1916)Ocho Valses Poéticos

Composed in 1886–1887.

Enrique Granados, born into the family of anarmy officer in Lérida, near Barcelona, in1867, and as a boy studied piano at theBarcelona Conservatory (he gave his first pub-lic concert at age ten) and Spanish music withthe noted folklorist Felipe Pedrell. He went toParis in 1887 to apply for admission to theConservatoire, but fell ill during the entranceexaminations and instead became a privatestudent of Charles Wilfride de Bériot, son ofthe celebrated contralto Maria Malibran andone of the Conservatoire’s most distinguishedfaculty members. Granados remained in Parisfor two years before returning to Barcelona in1889, where his mature début the followingyear created a sensation and led to a success-ful performing career that took him through-out Europe as a recitalist, concerto soloist, andchamber music player. The première in 1892of orchestrations of three of his SpanishDances, among the earliest works in theSpanish idiom written by a native musician,was well received and brought Granados hisfirst acclaim as a composer. Such encourage-ment prompted him to carry on with the se-ries, and by 1900, he had completed andpublished a full dozen Spanish Dances.

Granados continued to concertize andcompose during the first decade of the newcentury, concentrating on piano pieces andsongs. In 1911, he wrote the music consideredby many to be his masterpiece—a piano cycletitled Goyescas, inspired by the paintings andtapestry cartoons of Goya. Granados pre-mièred his Goyescas in Barcelona on March 9,

and created enormous enthusiasm when heperformed it at the Salle Pleyel in Paris onApril 4, 1914. He was awarded the Légiond’honneur and given a contract by the ParisOpéra to create an operatic version of the key-board suite for the coming season. The out-break of World War I in August stymied thepromised production in Paris, however, so theMetropolitan Opera in New York premièred thework in January 1916. On the voyage homefrom America, on March 24, 1916, Granados’sboat was torpedoed by a German submarine.He was picked up by a lifeboat, but dived backinto the frigid water to try to save his strug-gling wife. Both drowned. His death at age 48robbed Spain of one of its greatest and mostpromising artists.

The Valses Poéticos (“Poetic Waltzes”) com-posed in 1886–1887, is among the earliest ofGranados’s works for piano and reflects thenorthern European models for the form morethan the Spanish national styles that wouldcharacterize his later compositions. The ValsesPoéticos, as was typical of the classic Viennesewaltzes of the Strauss family, comprise a chainof complementary dance melodies precededby an introduction in duple meter.

Ástor Piazzolla (1921–1992)Selections from Suite Troileana

Composed in 1975.

The greatest master of the modern tango wasÁstor Piazzolla, born in Mar del Plata,Argentina, a resort town south of Buenos Aires,on March 11, 1921, and raised in New YorkCity, where he lived with his father from 1924to 1937. Before Ástor was ten years old, his mu-sical talents had been discovered by CarlosGardel, then the most famous of all perform-ers and composers of tangos and a cultural heroin Argentina. At Gardel’s urging, the youngÁstor moved to Buenos Aires in 1937, andjoined the popular tango orchestra of AnibalTroilo as arranger and bandoneón player.Piazzolla studied classical composition withAlberto Ginastera in Buenos Aires, and in 1954

CAL PERFORMANCES

PROGRAM NOTES

he wrote a symphony for the Buenos AiresPhilharmonic that earned him a scholarship tostudy in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. WhenPiazzolla returned to Buenos Aires in 1956, hefounded his own performing group, and beganto create a modern style for the tango that com-bined elements of traditional tango,Argentinean folk music, and contemporaryclassical, jazz, and popular techniques into a“nuevo tango” that was as suitable for the con-cert hall as for the dance floor. In 1974,Piazzolla settled again in Paris, winning innu-merable enthusiasts for both his nuevo tangoand for the traditional tango with his many ap-pearances, recordings, and compositions. Bythe time that he returned to Buenos Aires in1985, he was regarded as the musician who hadrevitalized one of the quintessential genres ofLatin music. Piazzolla continued to tour widely,record frequently, and compose incessantlyuntil he suffered a stroke in Paris in August1990. He died in Buenos Aires on July 5, 1992.Bandoneón opens the Suite Troileana, writ-

ten in 1975 in memory of bandoneónist, com-poser, and bandleader Anibal Troilo,Piazzolla’s mentor, who died in May of thatyear. The sultry Zita was composed in honorof Troilo’s wife.

Sérgio Assad (b. 1952)Tahhiyya Li Ossoulina

Composed in 2007.

Sérgio Assad, one of the world’s preeminentguitar performers and composers, was bornin 1952 into a musical family in Mococa, SãoPaulo, Brazil. With his brother Odair, withwhom he has performed in concert since 1979around the world and in collaboration withsuch celebrated artists as Yo-Yo Ma, NadjaSalerno-Sonnenberg, Paquito D’Rivera,Gidon Kremer, and Dawn Upshaw, he stud-ied with Monina Távora, a disciple of AndrésSegovia, and began composing and arrangingworks for his instrument when he was 14. Hesubsequently studied conducting and compo-sition at the Escola Nacional de Música in Rio

de Janeiro and took private lessons from thenoted Brazilian composition teacher EstherScliar. In 2008, he joined the faculty of the SanFrancisco Conservatory of Music. In additionto transcriptions and adaptations of music byBach, Couperin, Rameau, Scarlatti, Gershwin,Ginastera, Milhaud, and others, Assad hascomposed many original works, includingAquarelle for Solo Guitar (which was chosenas the required contemporary composition forthe 2002 Guitar Federation of AmericaCompetition in Miami), the ballets Scarecrowand Espantahlo, Fantasia Carioca for two gui-tars and orchestra, Concerto Originis for vio-lin, two guitars, and chamber orchestra, andmusic for the Japanese film Natsu No Niwa(“The Summer Garden”), directed byShinji Soumai.

Assad wrote, “Tahhiyya Li Ossoulina, whichtranslates from the Arabic as ‘Homage to OurRoots,’ is based on Middle Eastern modes.This piece was conceived as a tribute to thecomposer’s grandparents, who immigrated toBrazil from Lebanon in 1895. The descen-dents of the first Lebanese immigrants todaynumber as many as six million people inBrazil and have contributed greatly to thecountry’s development in many areas.Tahhiyya Li Ossoulina was recorded on ouralbum Jardim Abandonado on NonesuchRecords in 2007 and received a nominationfor a Latin Grammy Award as Best MusicalComposition of the Year.”

João Pernambuco (1883–1947)Interrogando

Composed in 1929.

Brazilian guitarist and composer JoãoPernambuco, born in Jatobá in 1883, was ofIndian and Portuguese descent. He startedteaching himself to play guitar when he wastwelve, and drifted to the coastal city of Recifeafter the death of his parents before settling inRio de Janeiro in 1902. He performed with thelocal musicians and established groups thatrecorded and toured throughout the country

PLAYBILL

PROGRAM NOTES

playing music in the traditional Brazilianstyles. He died in Rio in 1947. Interrogando(“Questioning”), like all of Pernambuco’s orig-inal compositions—chôros, tangos, waltzes,descriptive pieces, and songs—were deeply in-fluenced by the folk and popular music thathe discovered at home and on his travels.

Américo Jacomino (1889–1928)Abismo de Rosas

Composed in 1905.

Américo Jacomino was one of the pioneers inestablishing the guitar as an instrument of se-rious musical expression in Brazil. WhenJacomino was born, in São Paulo in 1889 intoa family of Neapolitan immigrants, the guitarwas regarded as a marginal instrument bestsuited to informal music-making rather thanto formal concerts. He developed his unusualtechnique early in life—he was nicknamed“Canhoto” or “The Left-Handed One” afterhis method of reversing the hands to play theinstrument but without changing the posi-tions of the strings—and began composing asa teenager. (He wrote the theme of Abismo deRosas [“Abyss of Roses”], one of his best-known works, when he was 16.) He startedperforming publicly when he was 18, beganrecording in 1913, and three years later gave apath-breaking recital at the São PauloConservatory, the first by a guitarist at a majorBrazilian concert hall. Jacomino thereafterhad a significant effect on Brazilian musicwith his recordings, broadcasts, compositionsfor guitar, piano, and orchestra, and concertappearances around the country. He died in1928 in São Paulo at age 39 of a heart condi-tion. Jacomino wrote the wistful waltz Abismode Rosas in 1905 after he had broken up witha teenage girlfriend and made the piece a hitwhen he recorded it in 1925.

Aníbal Augusto Sardinha (1915–1955)Medley

Aníbal Sardinha, born in 1915 in São Paulo toPortuguese immigrants, began playing guitar,mandolin, banjo, and ukulele as a youngsterand started performing in public when he waseleven, earning for himself the nickname“Garoto”—the Banjo Kid. Sardinha made hisfirst recording four years later, and by then hewas playing with bands and as a soloist allaround São Paulo province. In 1938 he movedto Rio de Janeiro, where he performed in con-certs and broadcasts, recorded, composed, andcollaborated with such leading Brazilian artistsas guitarist Laurindo Almeida and singer,dancer, and film star Carmen Miranda, whoinvited him to tour the United States with herthe following year. Sardinha became one ofBrazil’s most popular performers and com-posers, recording bestselling albums and con-firming the reputation as “The Man withGolden Fingers” that he had earned on hisAmerican tour. He composed in the traditionalBrazilian styles but brought to them a new sen-sibility influenced by jazz and popular musicthat presaged the bossa nova craze of the1950s. “It was not a transformation,” wrote theBrazilian pianist, composer, and folkloristWaldemar Henrique. “It was a long period ofgestation when composers were looking formodernity, breaking rules. The guide who pre-pared the approach of the bossa nova wasGaroto.” Sardinha died in Rio in 1955 at age39, as he was planning his first tour to Europe.Jorge do Fusa (1952, “32nd-Note George”),

titled in honor of the guitar-playing son of afriend, combines the influences of jazz har-monies and chôro, a term derived from thepopular bands of Rio de Janeiro that origi-nated in the mid-19th century and whichfreely mixed winds, guitars, and simple per-cussion instruments.Gente Humilde (1945, “Common People”)

is a reflective number inspired by Sardinha’sown modest beginnings that suggests hisawareness of his childhood neighbors’ mod-est circumstances as well as what a lyric later

CAL PERFORMANCES

PROGRAM NOTES

added to the piece calls “the voice of humblepeople who are happy.”Lamentos do Morro (1950, “Laments from

the Hills,” though it may also refer more par-ticularly to the Rio de Janeiro favela known asMorro da Providência) is a samba whosecheerful mood seems somewhat at odds (per-haps ironically so) with its title.

Dilermando Reis (1916–1977)Dois Destinos

Composed in 1948.

Dilermando Reis was born in São Paulo in1916 but lived most of his life in Rio de Janeiro,where he established himself as one of Brazil’sbest-known guitarists and composers. He firststudied guitar with his father and had devel-oped sufficiently by age 17 to join the well-known blind guitarist Levino da Conceição ona tour of Brazil. Reis settled in Rio, where hetaught (his students included JuscelinoKubitschek, president of Brazil from 1956 to1961 and founder of the country’s new capitalcity, Brasília), appeared regularly in concertand on radio, and recorded over 40 albums,playing not only popular Brazilian music butalso compositions by Bach, Barrios, Tárrega,and Pernambuco as well as his own works, forwhich he employed a particularly adventure-some harmonic style that he playfully saidmight well “confuse accompanists.” In 1953, hetoured the United States and recorded forColumbia. Reis died in Rio in 1977.

The gentle waltz melody Dois Destinos(“Two Destinations”) has become a standardof the Latin American guitar literature.

Baden Powell (1937–2000)Tempo Feliz

Composed in 1966.

Baden Powell was one of the 20th century’sforemost composers and performers of Latinpopular music. Born into a musical family inRio de Janeiro in 1937, Powell started playing

guitar at age seven, won an amateur radiocontest two years later, and was performingprofessionally by the time he was ten. He im-mersed himself in Brazilian classical and pop-ular music traditions and began broadcastingas soloist and vocal accompanist on RadioNacional in the late 1940s. He had his first hitas a composer in 1959 with Samba Triste, andthree years later met the poet, lyricist, andcomposer Vinicius de Moraes, with whom hecollaborated on some of the finest composi-tions of the emerging bossa nova movement.In 1963, Powell moved to Paris, where he be-came one of the leading exponents ofBrazilian music by performing, recording, andcontributing to the soundtracks of such majorfilms as A Man and a Woman (1966), forwhich he wrote Samba da Bencão. He livedand worked for the next two decades prima-rily in Europe, but returned frequently toBrazil to perform and record before again set-tling permanently in 1989, in Rio de Janeiro,where he died in 2000.

The text that Brazilian poet and lyricist pro-vided for Powell’s Tempo Feliz (“Happy Time,”1966) captures the music’s buoyant mood:“Happy time, let bygones be bygones/Time sofull of memories/So many songs he left/Bringing peace to so many hearts.”

Egberto Gismonti (b. 1947)PalhaçoBaião Malandro

Composed in 1987.

Brazilian composer, guitarist, and pianistEgberto Gismonti draws a world of musicinto his compositions. Born in 1947 inCarmo, north of Rio de Janeiro, Gismontibegan formal training in piano and classicalmusic at age six and demonstrated excep-tional talents for performance and composi-tion as a teenager. In 1968, he went to Rio deJaneiro, where he participated successfully inthe Third Rio International Song Festival,and then moved on to Paris to study orches-tration and analysis with Nadia Boulanger

PLAYBILL

PROGRAM NOTES

and composition with Jean Barraqué. Afterreturning to Brazil, Gismonti taught himselfto play guitar and developed a compositionalstyle whose references ranged from jazz to thetraditional music of his Sicilian and Lebaneseancestors, from the folk, dance, and popularidioms of his homeland to such European in-fluences as Stravinsky and Ravel. Since mak-ing the first recording of his own music in1969, Gismonti has become one of Brazil’sbest-known and most esteemed performersand composers, with some 50 albums as wellas hundreds of compositions for orchestra,chamber ensembles, dance, theater, film, andtelevision to his credit.

The wistful Palhaço (“Clown”) dates from1987. Baião Malandro (1978, “TricksterBaião”) derives its exuberant style from musicof the northern state of Pernambuco that in-corporates indigenous, mestizo, African, andEuropean influences and takes its title fromthe Portuguese slang for a slick neighborhoodoperator who cons unsuspecting victims. Thework is subtitled Forrobodó, a rowdy, informalBrazilian party.

Paulo Bellinati (b. 1950)Jongo

Composed in 1978.

Paulo Bellinati, one of Brazil’s most accom-plished contemporary guitarists, was born inSão Paulo in 1950 and studied at the city’sConservatório Dramático e Musical. From1975 to 1980, he lived in Switzerland, where hestudied at the Geneva Conservatory, taught atthe Conservatory of Lausanne, and performedwidely in solo concerts and jazz festivals. Sincereturning to Brazil, Bellinati has established aninternational career that includes toursthroughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas,collaborations with other leading artists,recordings, and numerous compositions andarrangements. Among his awards are a 1994Prémio Sharp (the Brazilian Grammy) andFirst Prize at the 1988 Carrefour Mondial de laGuitare in Martinique for his compositionJongo. Notable among Bellinati’s recordings isThe Guitar Works of Garoto, a landmark an-thology of music by the eminent Brazilian gui-tarist and composer Aníbal Augusto Sardinha(known as “Garoto”).Jongo (1978) was inspired by a song and

dance type thought to have magical powersthat came to southeastern Brazil with slavesfrom Angola.

© 2015 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

CAL PERFORMANCES

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

BRAZILIAN-BORN brothers Sérgio and OdairAssad have set the benchmark for all other

guitarists by creating new standards of guitarinnovation, ingenuity, and expression. Theirexceptional artistry and uncanny ensembleplaying come from both a family rich inBrazilian musical tradition and from studieswith the guitarist and lutenist Monina Távora(1921–2011), a disciple of Andrés Segovia. Inaddition to setting new performance stan-dards, the Assads have played a major role increating and introducing new music for twoguitars. Their virtuosity has inspired a widerange of composers to write for them includingÁstor Piazzolla, Terry Riley, Radamés Gnattali,Marlos Nobre, Nikita Koshkin, Roland Dyens,Jorge Morel, Edino Krieger, and FranciscoMignone. Now Sérgio Assad is adding to theirrepertoire by composing music for the duo andfor various musical partners both with sym-phony orchestras and in recitals. They haveworked extensively with such renowned artistsas Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg,Fernando Suárez Paz, Paquito D’Rivera, GidonKremer, and Dawn Upshaw.

The Assads began playing the guitar to-gether at an early age and went on to study forseven years with Doña Monina. Their inter-national career began with a major prize at the

1979 Young Artists Competition in Bratislava.Odair is based in Brussels, where he teaches atÉcole Supérieure des Arts. Sérgio resides inSan Francisco, where he is on the faculty of theSan Francisco Conservatory.

The Assads’ repertoire includes originalmusic composed by Sérgio Assad and his re-workings of folk and jazz music, as well asLatin music of almost every style. Their stan-dard classical repertoire includes transcrip-tions of the great Baroque keyboard literatureof Bach, Rameau, and Scarlatti and adapta-tions of works by such diverse figures asGershwin, Ginastera, and Debussy. Theirtouring programs are always a compellingblend of styles, periods, and cultures.

The Assads are also recognized as prolificrecording artists, primarily for the Nonesuchand GHA labels. In 2001, Nonesuch releasedSérgio and Odair Assad Play Piazzolla, whichlater won a Latin Grammy Award. Their sev-enth Nonesuch recording, released in fall2007, was titled Jardim Abandonado after apiece by Antônio Carlos Jobim. It was nomi-nated for Best Classical Album, and Sérgiowent on to win the Latin Grammy for hiscomposition, Tahiiyya Li Oussilina.

A Nonesuch collaboration with Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg in 2000 featured a collection ofpieces based on traditional and Gypsy folktunes from around the world. In 2003, SérgioAssad wrote a triple concerto for this trio thathas been performed with the orchestras of SãoPaulo, Seattle, and Saint Paul. In summer 2004,Sérgio and Odair arranged a very special tourfeaturing three generations of the Assad family.The family presented a wide variety ofBrazilian music featuring their father, JorgeAssad [1924–2011] on the mandolin and thevoice of their mother, Angelina Assad. GHARecords released a live recording and DVD ofthe Assad family live at Brussels’s Palais desBeaux-Arts. In the 2006–2007 season, theAssad brothers performed Joaquín Rodrigo’sConcierto Madrigal for two guitars andSérgio’s arrangement of Piazzolla’s FourSeasons of Buenos Aires with the Los AngelesPhilharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl. The

Fadi Kheir

PLAYBILL

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Assads were also featured performers onJames Newton Howard’s soundtrack to themovie Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts andClive Owen. In the 2010–2011 and 2011–2012seasons, the brothers toured a project entitledDe Volta as Raizes (“Back to Our Roots”) fea-turing Lebanese-American singer ChristianeKaram, percussionist Jamey Haddad, andcomposer-pianist Clarice Assad.

In February 2011, Odair Assad performedhis first solo guitar concert tour in NorthAmerica featuring concerts in New York andMontreal. Sérgio Assad has written anotherconcerto for this duo, called Phases. It was pre-mièred with the Seattle Symphony in February2011. Since then, he has been nominated foryet two more Latin Classical Grammys in theBest Classical Composition Category for hispiece for the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet andthe Delaware Symphony entitled, Interchangeand for Maracaipe for the Beijing Guitar Duo.In fall 2011, five members of the Assad fam-ily—Sérgio, Odair, Badi, Clarice, andCarolina—again joined together for anotherevening of new and favorite Brazilian works.Their tour included stops in Qatar, Sweden,Germany, the Netherlands (to open the “BrazilFestival” at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw),and three concerts in Belgium, with a finale atthe Palais des Beaux-Arts.

The Assad brothers’ collaboration with cel-list Yo-Yo Ma is ongoing. In 2003, the Mr. Ma’srecording Obrigado Brazil was released, fea-turing Rosa Passos, Egberto Gismonti, and

Cyro Baptista. Sérgio arranged several of theworks on the disc, which won a Grammy in2004. In 2009, the brothers were featured onMr. Ma’s chart-topping release Songs of Joyand Peace, which features guest artists as di-verse as James Taylor and Dave Brubeck. Mr. Ma plays Sérgio’s composition “Familia,”featuring Sérgio’s mother, Angelina Assad, sis-ter Badi, and children Clarice, Rodrigo, andCarolina. The release topped both the classi-cal and mainstream Billboard charts and wona Grammy for Best Classical Crossover. InApril 2012, Sérgio and Odair toured NorthAmerica with Mr. Ma and pianist KathrynStott, in a program featuring Latin Americanworks arranged by Sérgio and some of hisoriginal compositions, highlighted by con-certs at the new Smith Center in Las Vegasand Chicago’s Symphony Hall.

Future plans include performances of a newduo guitar concerto written for Sérgio andOdair by Sérgio’s daughter Clarice Assad, to bepremièred at the Pro-Musica ChamberOrchestra in Columbus, Ohio. In fall 2012, thebrothers returned to the University of Arizonain Tucson as visiting artists with support fromthe D’Addario Family Foundation. They head-lined the Fourth International Tucson GuitarFestival with two performances at HolsclawHall and master classes for advanced guitar stu-dents. In spring 2013, Sérgio and Odair touredtheir much loved trio with the inimitablePaquito D’Rivera and released a recording oftheir project, Dances from the New World.