Traditional line-up of free classical music concerts is back in Rio
Project Música no Museu (“Music in the Museum”) is coming back tomorrow (Jan. 11) with its concert series The Immortals of Brazilian Music and International Geniuses, at cultural center CCBB, in downtown Rio.
The lineup should feature soprano Georgia Szpilman and pianist Maria Luiza Lundberg revisiting the work of Brazilian musician and composer Chiquinha Gonzaga, with clarinetist Moises Santos as a special guest.
Sergio da Costa e Silva, the project’s creator and director, said that the series highlights the most brilliant names in Brazilian music, including Villa-Lobos, Francisco Mignone, Ernesto Nazareth, Ary Barroso, and Tom Jobim. “We’re giving special attention to 15 Brazilian authors and musicians, plus foreign ones, such as Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Brahms—the great names of international and national classical music,” he said.
The program this month will end on January 25 with pianist Cláudio Vettori and lyric tenor Rodrigo Mathias performing. The lineup includes the composer of the opera O Guarani, Carlos Gomes, and arias from the operas La Bohème and Tosca.
In February, the project will bring to the public Carnival Classics. A woman ahead of her time, Chiquinha Gonzaga will have her timeless song Ô Abre Alas song open the series.
Cultural heritage
Last year, on its 25th anniversary, the Música no Museu project was granted the title of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Rio de Janeiro. “In the field of classical music, only the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra (OSB) and the Música no Museu have this title. It’s a great honor for us,” Costa e Silva declared.
This year, he added, the project will bring performances to the Portuguese cities of Lisbon, Coimbra, and Porto, and also to Vienna, Austria, “taking musicians and Brazilian music abroad. We bringing back what we had been doing since 2006. These presentations will begin next February.”
In the first three months of 2023, the project will launch a book telling the project’s history. “Because the project has had concerts in countries across all continents. It’s been to Australia, India, Vietnam, Morocco. A performance was also staged at New York’s Carnegie Hall,” he concluded.
