Marcelo Bratke talks about the power of music

exciting collaborations with jazz musicians, film makers and Brazilian popstars, Marcelo Bratke returns to Southbank Centre for his upcoming concert From Rio to New York, which explores musical parallels between the two cities. Here he talks about the concert and how it was influenced by his work in prisons and with street musicians from Brazil.


Your upcoming concert From Rio to New York ranges from Gershwin to Vila Lobos and spans two continents. Are there any ideas or themes that connects the pieces?
I like to create concerts in which music links things which are not close together. In this concert I take four composers from Brazil and four from America, who were working in the same period of time, and I hold them up as mirrors to each other. Despite their different cultural environments we see the same musical phenomenon, influenced by popular culture in Brazil and by jazz in America.


You have been involved in a lot of exciting projects such as working with young musicians from shanty towns in Brazil, and playing a series of performances in prisons. What have you learnt from these?
I was almost blind from birth, having 2% vision in one eye, and 7% in the other. A few years ago I had an operation which restored full sight to my left eye, and I was able to see the world in its full beauty for the first time. I also clearly saw the social differences in Brazil and I felt I wanted to give something back. I created the Camerate Vale Musica five years ago, an orchestra made up of young musicians from shanty towns in Brazil. By the end of our first tour kids who hadn’t even known what the Carnegie Hall was were performing there, and now many of them are at university studying music.


When I took a Vila Lobos concert and film About Brazilian nature on tour around twelve prisons, I wanted to create an imaginary window in the prison walls. To be honest I was expecting it to be a depressing experience but it was the opposite. I found wonderful stories. Six hundred women heard the melodies of Vila Lobos and began singing along. When I was playing at a maximum security prison one of the prisoners came onstage and played a beautiful rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I found out later that he had murdered his girlfriend’s parents. That really showed me the subtle limit between normal and abnormal.


So do you think that music has a responsibility to society?
Music is a language of communication that can bring people together that weren’t linked in any way before. It is more than a form of art- it passes irresistible messages, more influential than a politician’s speech you could say. I think this is really what I am trying to communicate in my concert at Southbank Centre.


For full concert info and to book click here
http://www.mysouthbank.co.uk/news/marcelo-bratke-talks-about-the-power-of-music