Revered Brazilian songwriter and guitarist, Rio native IRINÉA MARIA RIBEIRO includes a performance at the Home Smith Bar on her brief mid-winter visit to Toronto, in concert with piano maestro and ethnomusicologist GORD SHEARD, bassist EZEQUIEL ‘ZICAMAN’ SILVA, and Irinea’s daughter LUANDA JONES on vocals.
As a songwriter, producer, and music director, Irinéa Maria has been a fixture in the Brazilian music scene since the boisterous early ‘60s. She took part in the bossa nova movement largely as a composer, contributing songs to the repertoires of notable Brazilian artists. Several of her compositions won her country’s famous song competitions of the ’60s and ’70s. Her music has been recorded by a notable roster of influential artists and musicians including Zezé Motta, Tim Maia, Sandra de Sá, Maria Creuza, Cauby Peixoto, and Jane Duboc.
She is also an outstanding singer and guitarist in her own right, and in 2016, as a monumental celebration of her successful and incredibly storied career, Ribeiro emerged from behind the scenes and entered the studio to record 50 Years of Song, her first album of original compositions in her five decades in music.
“Irinéa Maria Ribeiro is a fantastic songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist in the classic Brazilian popular music tradition. Irinéa came of age during the bossa nova era at the epicentre of the explosion of the new music, Copacabana, studying guitar with Bossa great Roberto Menescal (composer of “Little Boat” aka “O Barquinho”). Since then she has written many songs that have been covered by top Brazilian artists. I can unreservedly say that listening to her music is like discovering a lost masterpiece of Brazilian song, beautiful and very sophisticated on all levels – melodic, harmonic, and lyric.” (Gordon Sheard, PhD, Ethnomusicology)