Egberto Gismonti’s Concert at Symphony Space
Egberto Gismonti’s Concert at Symphony Space
After a 10-year hiatus, the legendary Brazilian multi-instrumentalist performed with energy and vibrancy to an enthusiastic crowd at a concert presented by Americas Society's Music of the Americas.
Egberto Gismonti returned to New York on September 12, 2014 after a 10-year hiatus to perform to an enthusiastic audience at the Peter Norton Theatre at Symphony Space. The concert was presented by the Americas Society and sponsored by the MetLife Foundation.
Introduced by Music Director Sebastian Zubieta, Gismonti opened his program on guitar with a set of three pieces performed classical-style on an acoustic nylon 10-string guitar. His first piece, Alegrinho & Saudações, coaxed a multiplicity of rising and falling calypso rhythms and sonic textures from the bass strings. After a brief guitar-tuning interlude against the Steinway piano onstage, Gismonti repositioned the nonslip cloth onto his left leg and played his second guitar piece, Mestiço Coboclo & Dança, which evoked a traditional Spanish sound and groove which had Gismonti bobbing along. Its rhythms burst into jovial fretboard tapping along the bass strings and simultaneous, galloping pluck of right hand treble strings.
If there one description could characterize the entire evening’s concert, it would be of Gismonti’s astonishing energy and vibrancy. Musically, he is able to evoke an array of new and unfamiliar creatures that traipse forward, peer with glittering eyes from the underbrush and then vanish just as mysteriously as they’d emerged. His third piece, Águas Luminosas & Bianca, proved to be fleet-fingered and melodic in complexity, arpeggiated and in a minor key set against resonant bass strings....
