Latin inflections

It was unexpected and it was the last tune of the festival and there were mates from the Jazz School on stage and the syncopations were infectious. I enjoyed this more than anything I'd heard (from the 3 concerts I'd attended): this is still CanberraJazz.net, after all. The tune was a world premiere of a piece written 18 years before by Gerard Brophy, not played by the German commissioners and only recovered when being transferred as manuscripts to the National Library. I missed the title, but like the rest of the concert, it was themed on Brazil and had the energy and abandon of samba and was scored like a manic music theatre overture. Great! I loved it and many others did too. A joyous end to the festival and a nice crossover between the classical and jazz/world music/theatre world. The earlier concert started with Tambuco, the Mexican percussion quartet playing a four cajons that could have been a latin improv class, then a serious classical percussion piece with Australian trio Speak Percussion, then a cute tune by Hermeto Pascoal using four metal mixing bowls filled with rice or similar and later some whistles. Then a larger ensemble playing six or more pieces dedicated to neighborhoods of Rio de Janiero, played by the Boccherini Trio and Alice Giles and various woodwinds and Continuum Sax and led by Roland Peelman from the piano. Then a another large ensemble playing Villa-Lobos, featuring Louise Page and Andrey Lebedev playing three guitar preludes. Then the big final tune. This was latin, exciting, expansive, diverse and a great high to end the festival.

Tambuco, Boccherini Trio, Continuum Sax, Roland Peelman, Louise Page, Andrey Lebedev and various others played Gerard Brophy, Villa-Lobos and Hermeto Pascoal as the final concert of the Canberra International Music Festival for 2016.