JOANA HOLANDA + FÁBIO PRESGRAVE / KANOKO NISHI-SMITH + AINE NAKAMURA

Recognized as one the foremost Brazilian musicians of their generation, FÁBIO PRESGRAVE (cello) and JOANA HOLANDA have been performing versatile and captivating programs with a wide range of aesthetic affiliations. Both musicians are faculty members at Federal University of Natal (UFRN) in Brazil.

The duo performs Brazillian-born, Oakland composer BRUNO RUVIARIO’S Beatriz Suite(2024), a 13-movement work written for the duo. Using one the country’s most beloved songs, Beatriz written by Edu Lobo and Chico Buarque in 1983 for the ballet O Grande Circo Místico (The Great Mystical Circus) as source material, the work rips apart the original song, expanding its imagery and emotional landscapes, cleanly quoting the song as well as transforming it beyond recognition. In addition, themes from other composers find their way into the work. The duo will also present PAULO CÉSAR VITOR’S short arrangemnt of Beatriz. The concert concludes with Portuguese-born composer JOÃO PEDRO OLIVEIRA’S Enigma (2018), a work confronting crossroads, indecisions and moments of stagnation. To surpass these moments where the creative process seems to “freeze,” Olivera adds new material based on intuition and chance without logical or rational explanation. It is this mystery, which is part of composing, that often revives creative life and makes new ideas flourish.

The concert begins with a debut duo performance by AINE NAKAMURA and KANOKO NISHI-SMITH. The two artists recently met in the Bay Area, and quickly found a shared mission in channeling, processing and ultimately accepting the complexity and contradictions observed in human nature: the urge to expose and to disguise, to construct and deconstruct, to abandon and to protect…seeking and reaching, through sounding and moving, beyond language and meanings, and the physical boundaries of objects and skin, breaking, and then mending them.

Purchase Tickets