journal.nonesuch.com

Nonesuch Artists Take Manhattan (and Brooklyn, Too) This Sunday

With the Brad Mehldau Trio's weeklong residency at New York's Village Vanguard well under way and running through Sunday, the city will also be playing host to performances by a number of Nonesuch artists this weekend.

Sérgio and Odair Assad will perform in both sessions of Sunday's Brazilian Guitar Marathon concert, a two-part, multi-artist event they co-curated. The Marathon begins at 2 PM at the 92nd Street Y and will be hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC radio. The event is part of the nearly monthlong New York Guitar Festival, which has presented more than 200 of the world's greatest guitarist since 1999, including Bill Frisell (who'll be performing upstate instead this Sunday at Peekskill's Paramount Center for the Arts) and Emmylou Harris (who'll be at Michigan's Folk Fest finishing up her tour with Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller). For more information on the Brazilian Guitar Marathon, visit newyorkguitarfestival.org.

Playing later Sunday afternoon on the west side of town is Richard Goode, who performs works by Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, and Fauré at the Rose Theater as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers events and its Virtuoso Recitals series. For further program and ticket information, visit lincolncenter.org.

Even with subway trains running on a weekend schedule, that should leave enough time for folks to head down to Brooklyn's Union Hall in Park Slope for Laura Veirs's set at 9:30 PM. Advance tickets are sold out, but a limited number of tickets will be available at show time. For more information, visit unionhallny.com.

And as always, you can find the dates and locations of Nonesuch artists' tours throughout the world on nonesuch.com by clicking the Tours button at the right.

Audiophile Audition: Assads Offer a "Winning Collection" with "Jardim Abandonado"

Audiophile Audition gives Sérgio and Odair Assad's Jardim Abandonado five stars, crediting the brothers' "great artistry and amazing technical facility" with setting "new standards for guitar duos." On the new album in particular, writes reviewer John Sunier:

The sound of the duo is just perfect—rich and natural, with the separation of the two instruments just enough without being exaggerated ... A winning collection with very wide appeal!

To read the complete review, visit audaud.com.

Chicago Mag: Assads' "Jardim Abandonado" Earns Rapturous Reviews

Since its release last September, Sérgio and Odair Assad's latest album, Jardim Abandonado, has received "reviews filled with a sort of rapture usually reserved for religious conversions," writes Neil Tesser in Chicago magazine. "The brothers' precise yet soulful recordings of classical works by Debussy and Milhaud—along with their spot-on interpretations of pop, folk, and jazz from their native Brazil," says Tesser, "have earned them kudos as the best classical guitar duo of today, and their tours are eagerly anticipated by audiences in Europe and South America."

Sérgio will be staying close to his adopted hometown of Chicago when he and Odair, joined by their sister, guitarist-vocalist Badi, perform at Northwestern University on January 31. For concert details, visit pickstaiger.com. For more tour information, click here. To read the Chicago magazine article, visit chicagomag.com.

NPR Music: Year's Best Include Many Nonesuch Arists

NPR's music programs and reviewers are turning in their lists for the Best of 2007, and a number of Nonesuch artists are among the top choices from public radio.

Wilco's Sky Blue Sky tops World Cafe's list of the best albums of the year. Writes the show's host, David Dye: "As the year progresses, it's remarkable when an album from earlier in the year has staying power." But for Dye, Sky Blue Sky proves that it can be done.

For the complete World Cafe list, click here.

Banning Eyre, the music reviewer for All Things Considered and the senior editor at afropop.org, has three Nonesuch artists on his list of the Top Ten of 2007: Caetano Veloso, an artist "of Dylan-esque stature," with the album Cê; the "legendary" Sérgio and Odair Assad, whose Jardim Abandonado showcases their mastery at turning music from any genre into "a thing of warmth and perfection in their hands"; and Youssou N'Dour who sings on Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take) with "one of the most inspiring and vital voices in pop music anywhere today."

For Eyre's Top Ten, click here.

NPR's member stations are also weighing in with their pics. On the list for "Top Ten Jazz Jewels of 2007" from WDUQ in Pittsburgh is the Metheny/Mehldau Quartet record. And Wilco's "Hate It Here," from Sky Blue Sky, is among the best songs of the year, according to Austin station KUT's music director, Jeff McCord. He calls the song "a simple tune so slyly infectious that the CDC has their eye on it ... Wilco has made one of its finest albums to date. And that’s saying a lot."

For WDUQ's list of the best in jazz, click here. For the KUT song list, click here.

You can listen to tracks from each of the albums and songs on the list by clicking on the links above or by visiting npr.org.

NPR: Assads New Album Takes Guitar to New Levels

Jardim Abandonado, the latest album from Sérgio and Odair Assad, was reviewed in today's edition of All Things Considered on NPR. Says Banning Eyre, these "legends of the classical-guitar world" have done their instrument and their precursors proud:

Sérgio and Odair Assad came up in the wake of Andres Segovia, widely credited with legitimizing guitar as a classical instrument. With their maturity and dazzling technical skills, the Assads easily qualify as masters in the house that Andre built. But happily, they aim for more. By bringing Latin-American music, jazz, original compositions and any other thing they please into the mix, they remain interlopers—loyal more to the humble, shape-shifting guitar than to any musical genre.

And even amidst works by Jobim, Gershwin, and Debussy, Eyre says "the CD's most electrifying composition," is a piece by Sérgio himself.

To listen to that piece and to Eyre's review, visit npr.org.

Music of Sérgio Assad on WNYC's "New Sounds" Tonight

On tonight's New Sounds program on WNYC, New York Public Radio, the music of Sérgio Assad will be among the works featured in New American Voices VI, an exploration of the music of Latin America. It's part of WNYC's series The New Americans, which focuses on musicians from around the globe working in the US. You can catch the show at 11 PM on the radio at 93.9 FM in New York City or streaming live at wnyc.org.

Assads Join Adelaide Symphony for "Most Exhilarating" Performances

When Sérgio and Odair Assad joined the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for two concerts at the Adelaide Guitar Festival in Australia this past weekend, the performance was "one of the most exhilarating on record" for the ASO, according to the Adelaide Advertiser's Elizabeth Silsbury. The program featured Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole, which showcased the syncopated rhythms "the Brazilian brothers have in their blood, along with a sense of lyricism rare among their kind." Also on the program were selections from Sérgio's arrangement of Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, which, complementing the orchestra's strings and winds, was "drawn even further into the Argentinian ambiance by the warmth and clarity of the two guitars," says Silsbury.

For the complete review, visit news.com.au.

"Guitar Pyrotechnics" from the Assads

This holiday season, the Times-Picayune's Chris Waddington is happy to do without yet another mall-music listen to "Jingle Bell Rock." He's listening instead to Sérgio and Odair Assad's new album, Jardim Abandonado, and has added it to his list of gifts to give.

"For the better part of a century," Waddington writes, "Brazilian musicians have been gracefully blending the sounds of Europe, Africa and the Americas. The Assad brothers are no exception." They do just that on their new record, bringing together a diverse array of composers, from Gershwin to Debussy to Jobim as only the Assads can do:

Full of flickering runs, lush chords and ringing harmonics, these vividly recorded performances are a delight for guitar aficionados. They also display the arranging talents of Sergio Assad, whose transcription of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" evokes all the colors and sonic weight of the original orchestration in 15 minutes of guitar pyrotechnics.

Read Chris Waddington's complete holiday "short list" at nola.com.

You can hear excerpts of the Assads' performance of "Rhapsody in Blue" as well as complete tracks from Jardim Abandonado by clicking here.

Sérgio and Odair Assad Perform on WNYC's Soundcheck

Sérgio and Odair Assad recently stopped by the Soundcheck studios at WNYC, New York Public Radio, to perform works off their new album, Jardim Abandonado. New Yorkers can tune in to Soundcheck today at 2 PM EST on 93.9 FM to hear the live performances. You can also listen to the show's live broadcast on wnyc.org.

Assads "Masterful" Adelaide Guitar Festival Performance

Sérgio and Odair Assad, whose album Jardim Abandonado was released this fall, performed in their first of three concerts as part of the Adelaide International Guitar Festival this past Saturday. Also on the bill for this "Global Guitar" program were Abdoulaye Diabaté and Banning Eyre, Guy Strazz and Rodrigo Galvão, Simon Shaheen, and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. The Adelaide Advertiser writes of the Assad brothers' set:

[They] performed a truly classical duet for acoustic guitars, interweaving, ornamenting, and supporting each other perfectly. Their program of South American pieces was highly expressive, showing masterful control of mood and tonal quality.

Up next for the Assads at the Guitar Festival: two concerts this weekend with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra featuring Ravel's Rhapsodie Espagnole.

For more on the Adelaide International Guitar Festival, visit adelaideguitarfestival.com.au.

Assads Perform at Adelaide International Guitar Festival

"We were raised in a country where the borders between different types and styles of music are not very clear." So says Rio-born guitarist Sérgio Assad, in an interview with the Advertiser out of Adelaide, Australia. On his latest record with his brother Odair, Jardim abandonado, the Assads' ability to move seamlessly across musical styles has produced an astounding mix of works from Brazilian bossa nova to Broadway.

In their upcoming concerts with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, as part of the Adelaide International Guitar Festival, November 30 and December 1, the Assad brothers present another genre-bending piece, Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, along with Rodrigo's Concierto Madrigal.

To read the complete Advertiser article, visit news.com.au.

New York Magazine Recommends Assads "Blissful" New Album

This week, New York magazine's "Vulture" ("Devouring Culture") recommends Sérgio and Odair Assad's latest recording, Jardim Abandonado, as "a blissful testament to the richness of their pairing." Throughout the album, "the brothers perform a brilliant act of creative give-and-take." And on a record of astounding performances, the "Vulture" notes as "most appealing ... their subdued and lyrical 'Rhapsody in Blue'—a reminder of what can be accomplished when a guitar is in the right hands."

Listen to a short excerpt from the Assads' performance of "Rhapsody in Blue" here:

Read the complete New York review by visiting nymag.com.

New Yorker: Assads "Jardim Abandonado" Exquisite

In the October 29 issue of The New Yorker, writer Russell Platt reviews Jardim Abandonado, the new record by Sérgio and Odair Assad, calling the Brazilian brothers' take on four classic tunes by Antônio Carlos Jobim "exquisite miniatures of ardent desire and ineffable regret." Platt also singles out the album's two transcriptions of French composer Darius Milhaud's "Scaramouche," which, in the Assads hands, "become mellow drops of sunshine"; and the album's "pièce de résistance ... a transcription of 'Rhapsody in Blue.' Instead of the crazy energy of Manhattan, we get the sultry glamour of Rio de Janeiro."

The album also features a work by Sérgio himself, four from his daughter Clarice, two pieces from Debussy's Suite Bergamasque, and a version of Adam Guettel's Octet from his Tony Award–winning The Light in the Piazza. For Platt, the Assads' arrangements "give all the pieces, whether popular or classical, an intimate sense of tonal richness and a new range of scintillating colors."

Listen to tracks from Jardim Abandonado:

"Brazileira" from Scaramouche (Milhaud) 2:11

"Vif" from Scaramouche (Milhaud) 3:13

"Jardim Abandonado" (Jobim) 2:33

"Rhapsody in Blue" (excerpt) (Gershwin) 0:30

To read the complete New Yorker review, visit newyorker.com. 

For more information on Jardim Abandonado, click here.