Pianist and composer André Mehmari will tour the U.S. in solo, duo and trio formats.

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The program for the solo concerts is The Great Brazilian Songbook. To make Brazilian music more understandable to North American audiences, Mehmari coined the phrase The Great Brazilian Songbook, a play on the words Great American Songbook which refers to the sublime literature of North American popular music that jazz musicians have used as the basis of their repertoire and improvisations. Just as popular music literature flourished in the U.S. in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, so too did it flourish in Brazil. When Scott Joplin captured the sound of the streets in the U.S., Ernesto Nazareth was capturing the new sounds of Rio de Janeiro. In this solo performance, Mehmari will create suites that summarize entire eras of Brazilian music: the birth of choro and samba, the samba-canção tradition which opened the way for bossa nova, the music of the Brazilian northeast, the instrumental music of Egberto Gismonti and Hermeto Pascoal, and a modern view of Brazilian song including his own contributions to the Songbook. Along the way he will show relationships between the two songbooks as they influenced each other. Finally, he will ask the audience to help him create improvised suites. He will ask for your suggestions – favorite tunes and songs, composers, ideas of any kind – that he will spin into a one-time-only, spontaneous creation. Be ready to share the music you love!

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He debuts a new trio with bassist Edward Perez and percussionist Rogerio Boccato as well as new repertoire inspired by nature. 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.