brazilian music for mandolin orchestra

[asinger]

Hi everyone -- I play in the Toronto Mandolin orchestra and sit on the artistic committee. I'm also very 'into' brazilian music, choro but also bossa, tropicalia etc. I have a question which I'm also going to pass onto the classical music forum (ps can you post to more than one group at once?). Is there 'old' music from brazil, particularly choro or some class bossa nova or something of that type, which has been transcribed for mandolin orchestra already? Our conductor can and does make arrangements for our orchestra, but it may be easier to convince him to try something if the orchestration is already a done deal. We mainly do light classical music and arrangments of russian and ukranian folk songs (the orchestra established 50 years ago has ukranian roots), but our conductor is quite open to trying music from other parts of the world.

Thanks for your help

Alex Singer

[Scott Tichenor]

My good friend Jeff Dearinger has several mandolin orchestra choro arrangements he's done for Brazilian pieces that I've recommended to him and they're quite good. He doesn't frequent the forum or the Cafe much but my wife and I watch Star Trek reruns and have dinner/drinks with them weekly and I'd be glad to get you in contact with him. Likely a fee for these but he's reasonable. Jeff has arranged for and conducted at past CMSA conventions and has done literally hundreds of arrangements for mandolin orchestras, mandolin quartets, etc. PM me if you'd like me to get you in touch with him.

[Jim Garber]

Very interesting that this thread with a wonderful quartet arrangement of Gaucho by Chiquinha Gonzaga played by the Melonious Quartet.

Also, find all Gonzagas compositions on this site.

[alb]

The Seattle Mandolin Orchestra has a vast library of music but I'm unsure if Choro is in it. You might want to ping Martin Stillion on this board.

[gus garelick]

I am the director of the Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble, in Sebastopol, California. We do an eclectic mix of music, including classical, Choro, Italian, Scott Joplin, and more. We do the Jeff Dearinger arrangement of "Alma Brasiliana", but I've written an arrangement of the Choro tune "Nao me Toques" (Zequinha Abreu). I believe you can find a You Tube of us playing that piece, searching for Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble. If you're interested, write to me off line (fiddler@sonic.net) to purchase a copy of the score, and other arrangements.