Kenny Werner and Claudia Villela will perform new improvised music with a Brazilian flavor inspired from their duo CD Dream Tales. For Villela and Werner, music is a spiritual exercise to be embraced openly, without premeditation.
''Claudia Villela is one of the most savvy improvisers I ever improvised with. She totally surprised me on the day of the recording when we just started playing without any plan. Whatever the chords I suggest, she put a part to it that made it sound quite intentional. The result is a CD that sounds through-composed. The idea of moving free like that would unnerve most singers, but she really made it happen. Claudia is just a very special musician.'' -- Kenny Werner
Claudia Villela and Kenny Werner
at the Maybeck
Sunday, March 04, 2018 at 3:00pm
This concert is SOLD OUT
Vocalist, pianist, percussionist and composer Claudia Villela's talent for musical exploration knows no limits. Growing up in Rio de Janeiro, she absorbed the sounds of Brasil all around her: Samba, Bossa Nova, Partido Alto, Choro, Baião, Maracatu, as well as influences of music from all over the world, Jazz, from traditional to classical to avant garde.
For Villela, music is a journey into spontaneity and inspiration, as her past recording projects with Toots Thielemans and Michael Brecker can attest. Raised in Rio de Janeiro, she absorbed the folkloric tradition of her native Brazil, as well as the influences of classical composers and American jazz. Her vocal improvisations and compositions encompass the full range of emotive sound, sometimes dramatic, sometimes humorous, but always fascinating. She has been dubbed by JazzTimes Magazine as a “…genius with a blistering voice…”
Kenny Werner is one of the premiere jazz musicians on the planet as well as a Grammy-nominated composer and the founder of the The Effortless Mastery Institute at Berklee College of Music. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world. In 1996 he wrote his landmark book, Effortless Mastery, Liberating The Master Musician Within. Werner has since created videos, lectured world-wide and authored many articles on how musicians, artists or even business people can allow their “master creator” within to lift their performance to its highest level, showing us how to be spontaneous, fearless, joyful and disciplined in our work and in our life.