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Chico Mello | Gibrana Cervantes
Event by: Sowieso
Location: Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, Berlin - Bezirk Neukölln
About event
TOMA CHOCOLATE! #18
Chico Mello, Under Serenades for voice & guitar
Gibrana Cervantes, solo violin & electronics
Fri Dec 12 | Doors 20:00 | Concert 20:30
Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
CHICO MELLO was born in Curitiba, Brazil. In the late '70s and early ‚80s, he received important musical impulses from Latin-American and European composers at the Cursos latinoamericanos de música contemporanea (Brazil, Uruguay). After studying composition in São Paulo and in Berlin he completed his PhD in musicology in Dortmund. Based in Berlin since 1987, he works as a composer and performer on experimental, Brazilian popular music, as well as in music theater and intercultural projects.
Of tonight's work, Chico Mello writes, "Under Serenades focuses on Brazilian Serestas (Serenades), a music genre derived from an old Iberian tradition where love songs were sung outside, often while walking around the village or beneath the window of the beloved. The genre was very popular in Brazil in the '30s and '40s, surviving well into the '60s, when I was a child. My father used to sing these songs starting in the '30s, and my brothers and sisters during the '60s. Even I sang some Serenatas as a teenager in the already grown city of Curitiba. From the '90s onwards, I began to re-sing some of these songs approaching them by imagining a kind of magnifying glass in my ears, expanding their harmony, their duration, and even their emotionality."
GIBRANA CERVANTES is a Mexican musician known for her unique contributions to the experimental music landscape as a violinist, composer, and improviser. Her artistry stands out for its innovative fusion of classical, metal, post-rock, noise, improv, and avant-garde influences, resulting in a distinct style that balances melody, mood, and cacophony with deep emotional resonance.
Her violin playing defies easy categorization. At times melodic, at times fierce and heavy, and at times chaotic, Cervantes’s musical vocabulary encompasses a huge variety of sounds. Her instrument sometimes takes the lead within her band’s Vyctoria's atmospheric and doomy sound. It’s sometimes found weaving ambient soundscapes as part of her work with Amor Muere, and it takes on multiple styles in her solo compositions. In this respect, Gibrana’s violin knows no boundaries. Her classical background and willingness to explore beyond her strict training makes her one of the most original experimentalists within the Latin American sphere.
According to Cervantes, "Tonight's performance starts from the violin, but not to play it in the usual way. I use it as a point of departure to generate layers, drones, and ambiences that expand through pedals and real-time processing. I’m interested in how sound can stop being a line or a melody and become a space. Each gesture stretches, repeats, transforms; the acoustic and the electronic blur until their origins disappear. The concert unfolds through improvisation and attentive listening. There’s no fixed form—only a flow, a drift.The result is a continuous landscape, sometimes dense, sometimes suspended, where the violin ceases to be an instrument and becomes a living texture."
Chico Mello, Under Serenades for voice & guitar
Gibrana Cervantes, solo violin & electronics
Fri Dec 12 | Doors 20:00 | Concert 20:30
Sowieso, Weisestraße 24, 12049 Berlin
CHICO MELLO was born in Curitiba, Brazil. In the late '70s and early ‚80s, he received important musical impulses from Latin-American and European composers at the Cursos latinoamericanos de música contemporanea (Brazil, Uruguay). After studying composition in São Paulo and in Berlin he completed his PhD in musicology in Dortmund. Based in Berlin since 1987, he works as a composer and performer on experimental, Brazilian popular music, as well as in music theater and intercultural projects.
Of tonight's work, Chico Mello writes, "Under Serenades focuses on Brazilian Serestas (Serenades), a music genre derived from an old Iberian tradition where love songs were sung outside, often while walking around the village or beneath the window of the beloved. The genre was very popular in Brazil in the '30s and '40s, surviving well into the '60s, when I was a child. My father used to sing these songs starting in the '30s, and my brothers and sisters during the '60s. Even I sang some Serenatas as a teenager in the already grown city of Curitiba. From the '90s onwards, I began to re-sing some of these songs approaching them by imagining a kind of magnifying glass in my ears, expanding their harmony, their duration, and even their emotionality."
GIBRANA CERVANTES is a Mexican musician known for her unique contributions to the experimental music landscape as a violinist, composer, and improviser. Her artistry stands out for its innovative fusion of classical, metal, post-rock, noise, improv, and avant-garde influences, resulting in a distinct style that balances melody, mood, and cacophony with deep emotional resonance.
Her violin playing defies easy categorization. At times melodic, at times fierce and heavy, and at times chaotic, Cervantes’s musical vocabulary encompasses a huge variety of sounds. Her instrument sometimes takes the lead within her band’s Vyctoria's atmospheric and doomy sound. It’s sometimes found weaving ambient soundscapes as part of her work with Amor Muere, and it takes on multiple styles in her solo compositions. In this respect, Gibrana’s violin knows no boundaries. Her classical background and willingness to explore beyond her strict training makes her one of the most original experimentalists within the Latin American sphere.
According to Cervantes, "Tonight's performance starts from the violin, but not to play it in the usual way. I use it as a point of departure to generate layers, drones, and ambiences that expand through pedals and real-time processing. I’m interested in how sound can stop being a line or a melody and become a space. Each gesture stretches, repeats, transforms; the acoustic and the electronic blur until their origins disappear. The concert unfolds through improvisation and attentive listening. There’s no fixed form—only a flow, a drift.The result is a continuous landscape, sometimes dense, sometimes suspended, where the violin ceases to be an instrument and becomes a living texture."