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Long live Universal Music, the music that will help unite the peoples of the world through art, to build a better world for all.

Itibere Zwarg

Itiberê Family Orchestra of France

The Itiberê Orquestra Família da França is an orchestra that brings together French and Brazilian musicians under the direction of Itiberê Zwarg.

 

Itiberê Zwarg is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, arranger, composer, teacher and conductor. Known for being the bassist and main companion, for the last 45 years, of one of the most prolific figures in Brazilian music, the inventor of universal music, Hermeto Pascoal. 

 

Imagined and conceived in the midst of the pandemic on both sides of the Atlantic by Itiberê and the French saxophonist Benoît Crauste, the Orquestra Família da França was born in Paris, in January 2022.  Itiberê came with his son Ajurinã - himself a drummer for Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo - and his flutist daughter Mariana, to lead talented instrumentalists on the Parisian scene. The orchestra rehearsed a repertoire entirely composed and organized for the occasion during 15 days of creation.

 

At the end of the rehearsals, several concerts were held - including a landmark date at the « Sons d'Hiver » Festival on February 5, 2022. An ambitious musical cultural exchange project, led by one of the brightest minds in Brazilian instrumental music, the Orquestra Família da França follows the tradition of the great groups led by Itiberê since the early 2000s. 

 

The orchestra allowed the musicians, throughout an intense creative process, to face the innovative perspectives of Universal Music (still largely unknown in France) in order to disseminate it to a wide audience. This experience generated powerful human and musical exchanges. The French family orchestra is the realization of the dream of bringing together French and Brazilian artists around an unprecedented song and is a strong symbol of the musical friendship between the two countries.

An orchestra 
unprecedented

This French version, with its new accents, includes some of the best young talents on the Parisian scene, most of whom also lead their own projects.

 

The orchestration favors transversality between styles - jazz, classical and contemporary music - allowing the harmonious expression of influences and timbres that are so specific to universal music.  The group includes a singer, a saxophone section , trombones, trumpets, flutes, a rhythm section and the remarkable addition of a classical string quartet.

The ensemble consists of twenty three musicians including the conductor. 

 

The Orquestra Família Itiberê is made up of professional musicians active in the scene as well as in teaching, most of them coming from higher music education such as the Paris Higher Music Conservatory.

 

As he demonstrates through his various works, Itiberê has the particular gift of empowering the musicians he leads, allowing each one to stand out naturally. By bringing out the best in each of them, he gives them the opportunity to express themselves through the collective. The sharing of knowledge and experience between musicians is at the heart of the project. 

 

The emphasis is on both collective play and soloist expression. 

 

The Itiberê Orquestra Família is an opportunity to introduce artists and the public to other ways of experiencing music.

 

The repertoire, composed specifically for this project, is freely inspired by the French musical universe.  In it, Itiberê gives his impressions of his numerous trips in France with Hermeto Pascoal & Grupo (since 1979). Brilho do Sol em Juan les Pins, Annecy, La fête des Gaulois, Gare du Nord, are musical images in which his Brazilian vision of our country shines.

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Sound Seeding

"Long live Universal Music, the music that will contribute to the union of the peoples of the world through art, to build a better world, for all"

Itiberê Zwarg's phrase sounds like a mission in itself, underlining what is at stake in this music's ambition: to unite the world's musicians beyond styles and ideologies.

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Itibere Zwarg

Itiberê, the historical bassist, disciple and main collaborator of Hermeto Pascoal, is considered one of the great architects of the renaissance of Brazilian instrumental music.

 

Since 1977, the two artists have collaborated closely in the emergence of a new trend, a new "sound", studied by musicians and musicologists from all over the world under the name of musicica universal, an original musical language whose roots are in Brazilian folklore, in the jazz and in all forms and styles that lend themselves to their free and unlimited inspiration.

Together with "Group", they recorded more than ten important albums, won several Grammy Awards and traveled the world.

 

Since 1999, Itiberê Zwarg has followed a parallel career under his own name, making a significant contribution to the history and repertoire of universal music with numerous productions. 

Universal Music

Term and musical trend launched by Hermeto Pascoal in an attempt to define his own music, universal music is a philosophy, a musical language in its own right. Affirmation of an art form impregnated with the many impressions received from the world, universal music integrates - in a typically Brazilian tropism - influences from all over the world, never failing to reinvent them with a disconcerting freshness.

 

With a polyharmonic and polyrhythmic approach, challenging the genres of all musical styles, universal music plays with borders. A poetic universe of luxuriant lavishness, he plunges his roots into the land of Brazil, accumulating unprecedented rhythms, shaking tonalities, and drawing world music, jazz, classical music, folk music and listening to nature.

 

"With an ability to see and hear music in all sounds, universal music is music that, although complex in harmony and rhythm, manifests an essence of pure nature rarely found in instrumental music" (Pedra do Espia booklet, Far Out Recordings -2018 ).

 

 Universal music claims a natural and free approach to music, ignoring the boundaries between academic and popular to stimulate its own thematic universality. ). 

Universal Music is an integration of all musical styles and trends, without prejudice that reaches people all over the world through the heart.

Itibere Zwarg

Cultural & Educational Activities

Itiberê is known in Brazil for being the transmitter and teacher of Universal Music. It was he who extracted from the rehearsals of Hermeto Pascoal's group the main musical teachings transmitted orally by the master. With his long experience, he forged his own musical language and innovative teaching methods.

Pedagogue and Conductor

Itiberê developed a didactic methodology of real-time composition. Step by step, he elaborates a musical theme in the presence of musicians who participate in the entire creative process. The transmission is oral, stimulating active listening, concentration and memory of students. Its approach allows for the formation of heterogeneous groups and encourages the spirit of collaboration between musicians of different levels.

 

For Itiberê, it is in the light of intuition that beauty is found and that music resides. He insists on this aspect in his teaching, encouraging his students to get rid of theoretical prejudices in order to free their listening. For him, above all, music is the art of listening.

Universal Music Workshop

For over twenty years, Itiberê has been leading universal music workshops in Brazil and worldwide (Argentina, Switzerland, Colombia, Japan, Finland, United States at the Manhattan School of Music in New York, France at the CNSM Conservatory in Paris, EDIM , Sons d'Hiver, etc.).

The first workshops led to the formation of the original Family Orchestra in 1999, made up of the most talented students.  These workshops are a school in their own right and unite a community of musicians from which some of the new talents of Brazilian instrumental music emerged. 

Cultural Actions

 

The orchestra members, most of whom are also teachers, offer a wide range of possible instrumental master classes to interested audiences: strings, wind instruments, percussion, etc...

 

Based on this experience, educational activities - in addition to orchestra concerts - are planned wherever they are welcome.

 

The audiences involved can be both amateurs and professionals and of all ages (conservatories, festivals, associations, music schools).

FOLLOW THE ORCHESTRA'S  NETWORKS

CONTACT FOR SHOWS

Luciano Bertrand |  Akamu

luciano@akamu.net  |  Tel: +39 32 9235-3329

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Thanks!

MATERIALS FOR THE CONTRACTING PARTY

Download the files for the show here!

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file 1

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