Letter from Ben Michaels ....

Hi Claudio,

Cellist Catherine Bent tumbled off the bus, case in tow, and walked into a room full of guitar players at Rio de Janeiro’s main choro school. She had arrived the previous night in Rio for the first time and knew no Portuguese (yet). The guitarists spoke no English. Somehow, they asked her to play, and somehow, she understood. She sailed through a popular choro piece, and another, and then – her audience still attentive – she dived into Bach. A roomful of skeptics became a roomful of supporters, and she was whisked off to her first jam session over feijoada and caipirinhas.

“Doors opened for me,” Bent recalls. “I was warmly welcomed into the world of choro in Rio. I had been there less than a month and was invited to play twice with a famous choro band on national radio. It could have been the novelty of a woman from outside Brazil, a cellist, who played the music. But I had also taken the time to really learn the style and a decent body of repertoire. It made it very easy to grow as a performer of the music.”

The Berklee professor has kept the tense wonder of that first encounter in her playing and composing, as her engagement with Brazil’s century-old answer to the string band grows. OnIdeal (to be released 5/18/18), the first recording chronicling Bent’s choro-inspired work, she unites top-shelf Brazilian players to explore the elegant tradition and its expressive, experimental possibilities.

Check out the tracks and read our full press release at the link below. And please do let me know if I can get you a copy for review or arrange an interview!
http://catherinebent.rockpaperscissors.biz/dispatch/pu/24264

Thanks,

Ben Michaels, Publicist

ben@rockpaperscissors.biz