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Lea Freire

LEA FREIRE's "Cartas Brasileiras" (Brazilian Letters - 2007) is receiving the enthusiastic applause of either public and critic, in many languages. Its music is the confluence of the three main musical forces that coexist in Brazil today : African, European and Native Indian. "Vento em Madeira", the first track of this album, is a beautifull combination of these influences. With an invited orquestra adding to 62 (sixty two) musicians, it is a colossal production of her label Maritaca, specialized in the best Brazilian Instrumental Music.

Her first CD, “Ninhal” (meaning the collective of birds nests), is still very well received by public and critic and some of the songs, specially 'Vatapa' have been recorded already in Japan, German, Italy, USA and by various artists in Brazil.

Fully recognized as a very creative composer, some of her pieces are now being played by flutists in concerts in Europe and USA. In Sept 98 she played at Miami University and the Blue Note in NY, as a special guest of Teco Cardoso, and recorded her second album - “Quinteto”, featuring her duo with sax and flute player Teco Cardoso, released in 99.

In 2005 released two albuns with trombonist Bocato 'Brazilian Song Anthology vol.1 and vol.2 featuring the most beautiful balads of Brazilian composers such as Nelson Cavaquinho, Ary Barroso, Tom Jobim, Lupicinio Rodrigues and others. This album was extremely well received by critics and public and the vol.2 is highly expected for the second semester.

Touring in Europe in 2006, she co-produced with pianist Thomas Clausen an CD - "Waterbikes" that is being released in Danmark and Brazil, featuring Lea's an Thomas's compositions, with Teco Cardoso, Fernando Demarco (bass) and Afonso Correa (drums and percussion).

As a producer of Brazilian Contemporary Instrumental Music through Maritaca (www.maritaca.art.br) - her label company - she has produced more than thirty CDs featuring names like Arismar do Espirito Santo, Filo Machado, Bocato, Vinicius Dorin, Thiago Espirito Santo, Silvia Goes, Tibo Delor, Edu Ribeiro, Mane Silveira, Teco Cardoso, Guello, Naylor “Proveta” Azevedo, Laercio de Freitas, Heloisa Fernandes and many others.

'...Brazilian Letters' should be posted to all mailboxes in the world as a testimony to the creativity and talent that this country has. It is a thing to be proud of: look ! I come from this country ! Sergio Santos, by e- mail - September 2007

'... Brazilian Letters' is one of the most beautiful and exciting works I’ve heard in my life. All in it is perfect: repertoire, arrangements, graphic design, conducting and performances of a flock of crazy of wisdom and talent musicians. The sound of all tracks, even being recorded with so different formations and at different studios and eras, is wonderful.’ Mauricio Carrilho, by e-mail - June 2007.

Felipe Senna & Câmaranóva: Câmara Brasileira

Read "Câmara Brasileira" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright

by Katchie Cartwright
June 15, 2023

Câmaranóva is a chamber orchestra dedicated to performing music of living Brazilian composers, with a focus on instrumental music “in its most diverse aspects" (including jazz, folkloric, and popular idioms). Felipe Senna, himself a composer and improviser, is the ensemble's musical director, arranger, and pianist. There are other composer-improvisers in the group, most notably flutist Léa Freire. The ensemble's mission is to present Brazilian instrumental music to a wide audience, in venues that would ordinarily be ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Lea Freire

Source: Michael Ricci
February 26, 2010

Containing some startling and original music performed with great authority and with all the harmonic and rhythmic complexities expertly negotiated, Léa Freire's new CD, Cartas Brasileiras, comes over richly and seductively to deliver a scintillating dreamscape that commemorates 10 years of the Maritaca record label as well as the 50th birthday of its founder, Léa Freire. A leading light in Brazilian music, Freire continues to break down musical barriers, moving freely between jazz, popular, and classical music. She is an inventive musician who has distinguished herself as a daring flautist, arranger, and composer. Cartas Brasileiras represents her writing at its most impressionistic and inspired. The first thing that strikes you about this recording is the orchestral warmth radiating throughout. Freire brings to the orchestra's embroidery a mesmerizing combination of luminous beauty and reserved expressiveness, and with this, new hope that Brazil, a country already rich in woodwind and brass traditions, will achieve a uniquely orchestral voice for its stringed instruments (Bruce Gilmann - Brazil Magazzine in LA)

Containing some startling and original music performed with great authority and with all the harmonic and rhythmic complexities expertly negotiated, Léa Freire's new CD, Cartas Brasileiras, comes over richly and seductively to deliver a scintillating dreamscape that commemorates 10 years of the Maritaca record label as well as the 50th birthday of its founder, Léa Freire. A leading light in Brazilian music, Freire continues to break down musical barriers, moving freely between jazz, popular, and classical music. She is an inventive musician who has distinguished herself as a daring flautist, arranger, and composer. Cartas Brasileiras represents her writing at its most impressionistic and inspired. The first thing that strikes you about this recording is the orchestral warmth radiating throughout. Freire brings to the orchestra's embroidery a mesmerizing combination of luminous beauty and reserved expressiveness, and with this, new hope that Brazil, a country already rich in woodwind and brass traditions, will achieve a uniquely orchestral voice for its stringed instruments (Bruce Gilmann - Brazil Magazzine in LA)

'Transcendental mail - Heir of Brazilian’s great flutists tradition, Lea Freire consolidates herself in the selection of Contemporary Brazilian musicians in ‘Brazilian Letters’... Music that flows beyond the media, toward the feelings of those passing by ... The solo of Nailor Proveta’s Alto Sax solo in 'Nine moons', for example, takes us further than NASA itself prospects…through the right interlocutors, transcend languages, especially through Brazilian matrixes, remains something very natural. Isn’t it, Tom? Isn’t it, Villa ?' Henrique Nunes - Diario do Nordeste (Northeast Diary) - August 2007.

One of the more dear and admired artists of Sao Paulo, flutist Lea Freire more an more demonstrates why she is also considered among the great contemporary Brazilian composers. Her classical formatiion is noted in the perfect finishing of her sonorous craftwork. Her involvement with the diverse forms of Brazilian popular music completes the recipy: a delicate sonorous symbiosis that magnificently expresses in the diverse tracks of the CD Cartas Brasileiras (Brazilian Letters - Maritaca, 2007). Her precious arrangements with trombonist Bocato,Anthology of Brazilian Songs, vol. 1 and 2, launched in 2005, are between the century best productions in Brazilian instrumental music .Her compositions sound, many times, as songs without words, with sophisticated melodies that, at the same time, you can whistle. But the richness of her writing also spreads in choros, waltzes, jazzy or symphonic touches, mixed genders, undefinable inventions where absolute beauty reigns. Lea is decisively stablishing herself as inheritor of the great Brazilian tradition that comes from Nazareth, and passes through Villa-Lobos and Tom Jobim, attentive to all the sources. Of each one of these the composer seems to have extracted the sum. Inspiration, talent and an enormous capacity to agregate excellent musicians around her, constructing a collective result where her creation arises, exuberant. Léa is a music lesson! Daniel Brazil - Magazine Brazilian Music (online) - July 2007)

The composer, arranger and flutist Léa Freire is also a philosopher, as the great musicians of all times.It can be perceived clearly when hearing Cartas Brasileiras (Brazilian Letters) and reading the text written for it in the innerfold.. The record, brilliant work of suppression of the popular- classical borders, congregates the interferences of nothing less than 62 "popular" and "classical" musicians helping to create a rare workmanship of high sophistication and, at the same time, emotive naturalness.Juarez Fonseca - ABC Domingo - Porto Alegre/Brazil - August 2007.

... a result of rare beauty, atemporal and total beautiful par excellence. Fabian Chacur - Shopping Music - Sao Paulo - june 2007.

Beauty and audacity are the registered marks of Cartas Brasileiras (Brazilian Letters) …. Among choros, waltzes, sambas and toadas, Lea created rich melodies, of classic connotations, for orchestra interventions and solo instruments … the CD values the beauty of the Brazilian popular music through the sensitivity and harmonic knowledge…but did not undress of its origins. Nothing is stern or dressed black-tie. Certainly is one of best Lea’s records, joy and good humor as main characteristics, in a work simple and majestical at the same time. Edgar Augusto - Daily of Para - May 2007)

A love declaration for her country’s music, takes the listener to various landscapes imagined by Léa and a flock of great musicians. The credits are a map of Instrumental music produced in Brazil… the work of Léa Freire is a balm… atemporal, brings an artistic truth that features great works - those who remain forever… unites grand orchestra with Brazilian percussion richness and opens space for conversations, musicians, peppered with improvisation ... this collective work gets gigantic countours... The rich diversity of Brazilian music is well represented in the beautifully drawn musical lines. Like a central figure of a no-boundaries musicians’s movement, she transforms this cd in an intent, presentations and revelations Letter. Beto Feitosa www. ziriguidum.com - May 2007

… Cartas Brasilerias - ‘Brazilian Letters’- is a composer’s record. Of a great composer, I add. The melody and rhythm diversity that Lea parades in this record, and the beauty of each one of the compositions, much beyond a certain “ecleticism” fashion, gives samples of the craft’s domain. Domain that derives from sensitivity, talent, gift for music and, also, from work, study, the capacity to hear what is around, to depurate what one hears, and to divide its sound and its space with those who deserves. This is the way to achieve addition by dividing. (Maria Luiza Kfouri - Discos do Brasil - www.discosdobrasil.com.br and Music News - www.musicnews.art.br - March 2007.

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