I am a musician of profound academic background, performance practice and production experience, who has taught piano and guitar to children adults for many years. I have also worked for elementary public schools as a pro-active teacher assistant on the subjects of literacy, and music; and currently I am also a Brazilian Portuguese teacher at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
A seasoned composer, also known for his arrangements, I am a guitarist (classical & jazz), and piano is my second instrument. With a solid academic education since early age in Brazil, I moved to Boston to attend the New England Conservatory where I earned two master degrees — one in Composition, another in Jazz Studies. In my professional life as a composer, arranger, performer and band leader, I have also taught private lessons, classes and workshops.
I have works for a variety of ensembles and styles, from small jazz and chamber groups, to choirs, as well as, chamber and symphony orchestra. My compositions for recorded film-scores and my CD “Brazilian Landscapes” were self-produced, distributed internationally and through amazon.com, and have been widely acknowledge by the press. I continue to lead my own ensembles in performances throughout New England and in jazz festivals including thirty-four appearances at the Regattabar, at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge. For twenty-five years I have had in my octet and projects amazing talents national and international talents — to name a few: Greg Hopkins, George Garzone, Aydin Esen, Esperanza Spalding, Fernando Brandão and Anat Cohen.
In Brazil, I studied in my late teens with H. J. Koellreutter (1915-2005) a brilliant professor from Germany and former student of Paul Hindemith. Koellreutter inspired my life-long passion for tonal organization and laid the foundation of my teaching materials whose focused at analytical thinking through listening and understanding harmonic function. My methodology is based on the integration of theory and practice with an emphasis on the importance of ‘feeling and observation’ in our capacity to hear sound, i.e., how music affects us through the flow of expectations and resolutions, how we perceive form, harmony and rhythm, as well as, register, texture, and all other essential elements behind what we perceive as music. I have been particularly keen in sharing the subjects of music theory with my students, and I have excelled in making my young students learn how to read music in a short time period.
After studying the piano for seven years, the classical guitar became my main instrument by my mid- teens. As Spain, Brazil has great tradition and schools on the instrument — where I acquired my foundations for sound, technique and repertoire. Regardless of their music goals, I have always encouraged my guitar students to develop a repertoire of Renaissance and Baroque pieces, and works by Fernando Sor, Villa-Lobos, and Leo Brower, as means to acquire true intimacy with the instrument.
From my life experience, broad range in education (including two years of Medical Sciences), considerable intercultural interaction and multi-language studies, team work spirit, and good communication skills, I greatly value life, and naturally inspire confidence.
As once put by one of my own pupils, I convey fluidly my passion and knowledge of music to my students.
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