Huw Warren’s Choro Choro Choro

Welsh piano great Huw Warren immerses us all in the intoxicating, ingenious music of Brazil, with a unique jazz slant, in what promises to be an exuberant spring party without equal, with a sizzling-hot band!

Choro is the vibrant beating heart at the core of music from this South American cultural hotspot. From its emergence in the late 19th century in Rio de Janeiro, choro has continued to be a musical and cultural influence right up to the present day. The combination of African music elements – more specifically from Bantu and Yoruba peoples – fused with European dances and forms such as Polkas, Marches and Waltzes – created an uniquely Brazilian urban popular music.

For this joyous project, Huw – seen here last year with Iain Ballamy – has adapted and arranged music from some of the original innovators such as Chiquinha Gonzaga (1847-1935) and Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) as well as the undisputed “heavyweight” of choro composers Pixinguinha (1897-1973) and the highly influential Jacob Do Bandolim (1918-1969) and Jonas Pereira da Silva (1934-1997). Modern masters are represented by Guinga (b1950) and Hermeto Pascoal (1936-2025), who both have included highly individual choros and chorinhos in their varied compositional outputs. Interspersed are original compositions from 2023, written as a response to a period of immersion in the whole choro history; and are very much a personal reaction to the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic aspects of choro that Huw finds so attractive.