Eighth
Annual Samba Fest at Hartford Riverfront
Saturday,
May 3
Hartford, Conn.
(April 1, 2014) – Brazilian and Connecticut artists join forces with Trinity
College students at the eighth annual Samba Fest on Saturday, May 3, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., at Mortensen
Riverfront Plaza, 300 Columbus Boulevard. Admission
is free. Rain or shine, the show will go on.
The
family-friendly event begins with craft-making activities for children and
families. Those who make a drum on-site or bring one from home are invited to
participate in the opening parade at noon.
The Brazilian composer,
arranger, and guitarist Ivan Vilela will
make his American debut at Samba Fest. A specialist in playing the
viola caipira, an acoustic guitar with ten steel strings used in Brazilian folk
music, Vilela has recorded more than 15 albums and is currently a professor at
the University of São
Paulo in the School of Communication and Arts.
Samba Fest
features the Trinity Samba Ensemble,
directed by Eric Galm. The group is
formed in an academic course in which students learn Brazilian culture through
its music and rhythms. The Samba Ensemble repertory derives from the batucada, a drumming group that plays
samba music during Brazil’s carnival celebrations. They perform participatory
call-and-response songs in Portuguese and English. The group plays percussion
instruments such as the surdo
(similar to a bass drum); tamborim
(small frame drum); agogô
(double-bell); and ganzá (shaker).
The group takes musical cues from the repinique,
the “master drum,” supported by guitar, bass, and other instruments, which add
harmonic layers to the multi-part vocals and rhythms.
Throughout the afternoon,
New Haven’s Ginga Brasileira,
directed by Efraim Silva, will demonstrate the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira and the “stick dance” called maculelê, which originated with enslaved
Africans working on Brazilian sugar plantations. They will also give a group
lesson in samba dance.
Other
performers include the Hartford Steel
Symphony, co-directed by Curtis Greenidge and Kelvin Griffith, and the Trinity Steel Band, led by Curtis
Greenidge.
Eric
Galm, who conceived and produces Samba Fest, is Associate
Professor of Music and Ethnomusicology at Trinity College, where he directs the
Samba Ensemble and is the coordinator for the music track of the Trinity in
Trinidad Global Learning Site. From 2006 to 2010, he served as president
of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s Northeast Chapter. He has lived,
studied and traveled extensively throughout Brazil, and has conducted research
in Cuba and Trinidad. He holds degrees in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan and
Tufts universities, percussion performance from the University of Michigan, and
performance certificates from the Escola Brasileira de Música and the Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
Produced by
Trinity College in in partnership with Riverfront Recapture, Samba Fest is sponsored
by the Consulate General of Brazil in Hartford, The Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts
Foundation, Trinity College (Austin Arts Guest Artist Series, Music Department,
Office of Multicultural Affairs; Center for Urban and Global Studies Arts
Initiative, Trinfo Café, and Dean of Students), Greater Hartford Arts Council, and
West Hartford Cultural Council for educational performances in that town’s
elementary schools.
The Trinity Samba Fest is free and open
to the public. For directions and parking information, visit sambafest.com. For general information,
call 860-297-2199.
Samba Fest can
be heard live on WRTC 98.3 FM radio.
Founded in Hartford, Connecticut, in
1823, Trinity College (www.trincoll.edu) is
an independent, nonsectarian liberal arts college with over 2,200 students from
48 states and 57 countries. The faculty and alumni include recipients of the
Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur award, Guggenheims, Rockefellers, and other
national academic awards. Trinity students integrate meaningful academic and
leadership experience at all levels on the College’s celebrated campus, in the
Capital City of Hartford, and in communities all over the world.
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