Flyer
Don Pandeiro and Di Freitas are performers, artisans, and instrument builders who represent two different Brazilian contexts and musical styles: urban and rural, Southeast and Northeast, and samba and música nordestina. This event will showcase the unique combination of musical talent and instrument-making abilities of these two Musicians in Residence.

Percussionist Don Pandeiro is a local musical and artistic icon in São Paulo, where he has spent most of his adult life, playing small shows, fabricating samba instruments out of innovative material, and building public art fixtures, such as a massive peace monument constructed entirely from match sticks.

Francisco Ferreira de Freitas Filho, known by his stage name Di Freitas, is a rabequeiro (fiddler), guitarist, luthier, and music educator based in Juazeiro do Norte, a city in the hinterlands of the Brazilian Northeast. Di Freitas performs on and builds his own string instruments from calabash and other found materials, and he teaches youth in his hometown to build and play their own homemade fiddles in an “orchestra” he directs.

Don Pandeiro and Di Freitas will be on campus for a one-week residency, offering students and faculty an exceptional up-close look at Brazilian regional music in the making. Full schedule of events and links to the musicians in action can be found here.

Program Notes

VIDEO