Annotations for Places: Brazil

[Background--music--classical guitar] They've been called the world's foremost guitar duo, Sergio and Odair Assad have been playing classical music together ever since. They were young boys in their native Brazil. The Assad brothers recently completed their 13th US tour. Nina Tiecholz caught up with them in New York. She prepared this report.

[Background--music--guitar] Sergio and Odair are practicing absorbed with concentration. The brothers practice 10 hours a day every day, but they "never tire of it," says Sergio and music is always on his mind.

I think I go to an extreme and I think of music all the time, that's too much. I can't live without. [Laughs]

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[Background--music--guitar] Sergio says his brother Odair is more relaxed, although of the two Sergio is more talkative and open. It's an openness that extends out to their audience when they play or more like an interplay says Sergio, since the audience affects how they improvise.

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[Background--music--guitar] From the beginning, we never planned anything, just let it go. I think that's the only way to have a nice feeling when you play a concert. That you can be improvised. So some of the dynamics come there on stage. It depends on the hall, it depends on the people. It comes together. Everything comes together.

They respond so well to people responding to them that it's kind of like a dance

Guitar maker and friend Tom Humphrey.

[Background--music--guitar] And it gets intense, absolutely intense. They are willing to go as far as the audience wants them to go.

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[Background--music--guitar] These are the kinds of rhythms and melodies that Sergio and Odair grew up with in the house of their father, an amateur mandolin player who still lives in their small hometown outside of Rio de Janeiro. For a long time, Brazilian songs and Argentine Tangos were all they performed, but as teenagers, they began listening to classical music and in a turn away from Latin America, the Assad's latest release is devoted entirely to 18th century baroque music transcribed from pieces written for the harps accord. Because the instrument was plucked and therefore more percussive, its rhythms work well for the guitar.

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[Background--music--guitar] When the Assads play, it's as if they have four hands, two guitars, but only one body. Their starts and stops are so accurately timed that you think they were somehow wired together.

You have your internal temple, right? Everyone does. So what happens at through the years we started to have the same temple, internal temple. So I don't know, sometimes I find it very strange to begin a piece. Sometimes I don't give any sign, but he starts with me. So I don't know. Sometimes it's weird. [Background--music--guitar]

[Background--music--guitar] Weird, but also seamless and intimate. Even when they play classical music or American jazz, you can hear the echo of Brazil with its sensual passionate rhythms. For Latino USA, I'm Nina Tyschultz reporting.