Evento
TERÇA 13 NOVEMBRO - 21H30
João Barradas, acordeão, acordeão synth, composição
Greg Osby, saxofone alto
Luca Alemanno, contrabaixo
Naíma Acuña, bateria
10,00 eur / 7,50 eur c/d
João Barradas (b. 1992, Portugal) is currently one of the most prominent Portuguese musicians within the international jazz circuit. A skilled accordionist, and the winner of the first prize in the category of instrumental solo in the Made in New York Competition, Barradas has a solid musical career, both in jazz as well as in classical music, and is a collaborator of some of the most relevant Portuguese musicians (such as João Paulo Esteves da Silva, Sérgio Carolino ou Pedro Carneiro, among others) and has also worked with several internationally reputed musicians such as Gild Goldstein, Tito Paris or Greg Osby, the North-American saxophonist who will be the special guest of the accordionist in this year’s edition of Guimarães Jazz.
A former student of the National Conservatory, where he achieved the maximum grade, and of the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, João Barradas released his first album when he was only nineteen years-old, in partnership with the tubist Sérgio Carolino. Since then, he has developed an intense creative and formative activity which has granted him an exceptional degree of notoriety in the context of contemporary music, rarely achieved by Portuguese musicians due to the semi-peripheral position of Portugal. The eccentricity of his instrument, both in jazz and in classical music contexts, is certainly one of the factors that contributed to the visibility of his work; nevertheless, we should not make the mistake of neglecting his obsessive dedication to the study of the accordion. His technical skills and his expressiveness are, therefore, the consequence of a rigorous and competent work which allowed João Barradas to reach a position of prominence both as interpreter of the classical repertoire as well as jazz improviser and composer.
In Guimarães Jazz, João Barradas will perform with his quartet, alongside a group of musicians including Greg Osby (b. 1960, USA), a saxophonist associated to free jazz and free funk and a former member of Steve Coleman’s M-Base Movement, who has collaborated throughout his career with great jazz musicians such as Cassandra Wilson, Jack DeJohnette, Wadada Leo Smith or the psychedelic folk band Grateful Dead. Besides Barradas and Osby, the quartet includes two young musicians who are now beginning to find their own space in the European jazz scene: the Italian bassist Luca Alemanno and the Spanish drummer Naíma Acuña. Focused on Barradas’ compositions and formed by some of the most promising European instrumentalists of the new generation of jazz, this group presents a peculiar music that is decisively marked by the sound of the accordion without ever indulging to a gratuitous musical exoticism or eccentricity, rather choosing to root itself in jazz and classical music’s tradition in order to discover new creative solutions.