Cyro Baptista
Cyro Baptista ‘Beat the Donkey’ will be performing in Sines’ Castle on the 24th of July.
Since arriving in the U.S. in 1980 from his native country Brazil, Cyro Baptista has emerged as one of the premier percussionists in the country. Coinciding with the rise in the public’s interest of world music, Cyro has managed to record and tour with some of music’s most popular names. His mastery of Brazilian percussion and the many instruments he creates himself, have catapulted him into world renown. Cyro’s credits read like a “Who’s Who” of modern music. He toured extensively with Yo-Yo Ma’s Brazil Project, Trey Anastasio’s Band (of Phish), John Zorn’s Electric Masada, Herbie Hancock’s Grammy award winning “Gershwin’s World”, Sting and Paul Simon’s “Rhythm of the Saints”. With his own project, the percussion and dance ensemble known as ‘Beat the Donkey’ Cyro gives free rein to his imagination, mixing his tremendous musical skills, his natural humor and theatrical ways with instruments from Brazil, Middle East, Indonesia, Africa and US. The first Beat the Donkey album, (TZADIK) was picked by The New York Times as one of the ten best alternative albums of 2002. Readers of JAZZIZ and DRUM magazine voted it as “Best Brazilian CD of the Year” and named Cyro “Best Percussionist of 2002.” Downbeat Magazine’s 51st annual critics’ poll selected Cyro as “Rising Star” in percussion. He released his latest CD, “Banquet of the Spirits”, in 2008.
The new phenomenon of British indy jazz, Portico Quartet, will be at Centro de Artes de Sines on the 20th of July.
Living and playing together Portico Quartet describe their ethos as like an Indy band that plays post-jazz, and their unique sound has won them fans from Gilles Peterson to Radio 4 and Notion to BBC Music Magazine, and made their debut release “Knee-Deep In The North Sea” (2008) Time Out’s Jazz, Folk and World music album of the year and nominated to Mercury Prize. Portico Quartet are Jack Wylie (soprano Saxophone), Milo Fitzpatrick (double bass), Nick Mulvey (Hang and percussion) and Duncan Bellamy (drums and Hang), and it’s the mix of ethereal saxophone, flying saucer like Hang (imagine an otherworldly steel drum), clattering drums and earthy double-bass that gives their music it’s inimitable, beautiful sound. It was the chance purchase of the Hang by Duncan Bellamy, at a music festival, that inspired the young friends to start a band, and while their largely intuitive music references jazz and African music it’s the Hang inspired trance-like repetitive patterns of Duncan and Nick Mulvey that propel the band into stranger pastures: invoking Philip Glass and Steve Reich’s gamelan inspired minimalism.
Jewish music youngest diva, Mor Karbasi, is playing at Centro de Artes de Sines on the 20th of July.
Mor Karbasi, still a tender 23 year old, burst upon London’s global music scene in March 2008 with the release of her first album “The Beauty and The Sea” – heralded by fRoots and later The Guardian – whose Robin Denselow wrote… “This album establishes the London-based Israeli singer Mor Karbasi as one of the great young divas of the global music scene, alongside the likes of Mariza or Yasmin Levy”. Mor Karbasi sings in Ladino, Spanish, Hebrew and on rarer occasions, English. Fortune has brought her a sublime singing voice and she puts it to most excellent use – as Ian Anderson at fRoots puts it… “She’s able to effortlessly switch from a breathy intimacy to that hard edged, intense open throated style…pulling you deep into songs, taking the senses and emotions on an addictive roller coaster .” With a wide-ranging repertoire from traditional songs dating from the Jewish culture of fifteenth-century Spain to enchanting compositions of her own, Mor has been seducing her fans with beautiful music.
