Rob Curto’s Forró For All tours Midwest in June 2007

Rob Curto
Rob Curto

New York City Brazilian music group Rob Curto’s Forró For All will be touring the Midwestern United States in June 2007. They will be featured at important venues such as: The City Folk Festival in Dayton,.Ohio, Festival Latino in Columbus, Ohio, The Ark in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Rob Curto’s Forró For All is a band dedicated to the sound of Northeastern Brazil’s traditional “forró pé de serra” music, performed with a sensibility born of New York City’s diverse and dynamic musical culture. In Northeastern Brazil a forró party unites communities and generations, with couples dancing, locked in a sensual embrace, to accordion, zabumba and triangle. This collective celebration is a creative response to the difficulties of life in the Northeast and an expression of fantastic musical intelligence and wit. June is the time of year when the traditional Festas Juninas are celebrated in Brazil, especially in the Northeast and forró is played non-stop. The Festas Juninas celebrate the religious, cultural, and rural roots of Brazil.

Forró For All’s founding member, Rob Curto, is a musician who both respects and transcends idioms, mixing elements of jazz with a language and feel that is distinctly Brazilian. A native New Yorker and important member of that city’s world music and jazz scene, Rob has also spent years intimately involved with the music and culture of the Brazilian Northeast. He studied with great accordionists from Pernambuco, Brazil such as Arlindo dos Oito Baixos, Camarão and Silveirinha, and with guitarist and master of harmony Alencar 7-Cordas from Paraíba.

Rob keeps as his bible the work of Dominguinhos (with whom he has performed), Sivuca, Oswaldinho, Hermeto Pascoal and of course the great innovator of forró, Luiz Gonzaga. He has spent years working as a musician in Brazil, and developed a reputation there as an extremely skillful and artistic forró accordionist. In addition his work includes playing and collaboration with heavy-weights of world music such as Lila Downs, David Krakauer, Cyro Baptista, Frank London and Omar Faruk Tekbilek.

Rob Curto’s Forró For All’s June tour features special guest: Rio de Janeiro vocalist, Magali. An institution of Rio’s yearly carnival, Magali, has composed and sung for numerous groups, most recently with Monobloco. In the U.S. she has collaborated with artists such as: Samba New York, Hank Schroy, and Jorge Amorim.

Rob Curto’s Forró For All have been featured at venues like: 2007 Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, Louisiana, the Madison World Music Festival in Madison, Wisconsin, the Chicago World Music Festival and many others.

Rob Curto’s Forró For All June 2007 Tour

Saturday, June 9th- Marquette Waterfront Festival (Madison, WI)
www.marquette-neighborhood.org

Sunday, June 10th- Club Timbuktu (Milwaukee, WI)
www.clubtimbuktu.us

Wednesday, June 13th-Nighttown (Cleveland Heights, OH
www.nighttowncleveland.com

Thursday, June 14th-The Ark (Ann Arbor, MI)
www.theark.org

Friday, June 15th-Saturday, June 16th-Festival Latino (Columbus, OH)
www.festivallatino.net

Sunday, June 17th-Shadow Lounge (Pittsburgh, PA)
www.7thmovement.net

Thursday, June 21st-City of Chicago Summerdance Series (Chicago, IL)

Friday, June 22nd- Carleton College Concert Hall presented by Art Org (Northfield, MN) Opening for The Bad Plus
www.artorg.info

Sunday, June 24th- The Cedar Cultural Center (Minneapolis, MN)
www.thecedar.org

Sunday, July 1st-CityFolk Festival (Dayton, OH)
www.cityfolk.org

Author: World Music Central News Room

World music news from the editors at World Music Central

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