Marcos Amorim Trio - Portraits - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

AVAILABLE ON APRIL 11TH Brazilian guitarist Marcos Amorim was born in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960's. The young Carioca grew up surrounded by the cool new sounds of bossa nova and jazz. His father was an amateur musician who enjoyed inviting Rio's top professionals over for late night jam sessions, often playing the night away until the sunrise sent everyone home. At age 14, Amorim began his musical studies with Hélio Delmiro, Isidoro Kutno and Célia Vaz. Within a few years he was already performing with Daûde, Tânia Alves, Zezé Motta, Bêlo Velloso and others. He appeared with Barrosinho at the Platinum Festival at Montreux in 1988. He has found inspiration both in great American and Brazilian guitarists and composers and uses these influences as a springboard to his own unique electric guitar sound. Amorim's 1993 debut album 'Boto' (The Pink Dolphin) was a independent voted 'Best Instrumental CD of the Year' by Rio's leading newspaper 'O Globo'. His second , the 1998 'Luz da Lua' (Light of the Moon) was also critically well-received and featured such guests as Vittor Santos, Tomás Improta, Mauricio Einhorn and Barrosinho.

Sea of Tranquility marks the fifth Adventure Music for acclaimed Brazilian guitarist Marcos Amorim. The album features Marcos on guitar, Rafael Barata on drums, Augusto Mattoso on bass, and Itamar Assiere on piano and Rhodes. InchApollo 11 finally landed on the Sea Of Tranquility,Inch said the speaker on TV. I remembered astronaut Neil Armstrong floating in slow motion in a psychedelic dance as he picked up pebbles of the moon. A lonely and poetic image. That's what I felt at that time. When I wrote and named this this song, I wanted to exactly portray the sensation of peace and solitude that I felt in 1969, at the age of five. It makes sense. Sea Of Tranquility still represents to me today, that same peace that Leo felt.

?Both during my studies and my years as an active violinist, works for violin solo have been of central importance to me. When I studied with Louis Persinger in New York, the focus was on the solo repertoire. He was one of the most prominent violinists and pedagogues of his time, and the works by Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) and Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) on this album, I got to know through him. I performed Johan Helmich Roman's (1694-1758) B Minor Assaggio for the first time in 1979 in Haraldsmåla outside the city Kalmar when a memorial plaque for him was to be unveiled. In this village he lived the last years of his life. I discovered the sonata for violin solo by Moses Pergament mostly by chance when I was browsing among the music shelves of a music store in Stockholm in the late 1960s. My curiosity was aroused by the fastidious, concentrated expression. Even though the Chaconne is more known, the sonata was the one I found.