Chamber-music from Latin-America

The Duo Tavares/Joner explore the boundaries between popular and classic music-tradition with emphazise on Brazil, Cuba, Argentina and Venezuela. The rhytmical aspects of this music is rarely heard convincingly performed by classical musicians. The classical subtleness and tone-qualities are on the other hand seldom found in authentic performers of theese music-forms. In the Duo Tavares/Joner a fusion of the two opposite aestethics are combined.

This collaboration between brazilian cellist Gustavo Tavares and Sverre Indris Joner is exploring a rarely exposed side of Latin American Music. Composers like Ignacio Cervantez and Ernesto Lecuona from Cuba or Ernesto Nazareth and Chiguinha Gonzaga from Brazil are hardly played in the classic concerthalls, although their significant contribution of locally founded musical has got many interesting chamber musical qualities that is really worth attention.

Sverre Indris Joner is considered the foremost specialist in Latin-American music in Norway. Joner having studied percussion in Cuba may be one of the explanations why he has acquired such an authetic approach to these styles. As founder of various ensembles like Tango for 3 , Hovedøen Social Club & Electrocutango he is constantly exploring the boundaries of latin music in conjunction with a variety of styles.

Gustavo Tavares has been described as “one of the most important Brazilian names in the classical music of our time” (Correio Braziliense, 3.27.2005) and is considered a specialist on Latin American music. In 1995, together with clarinetist Paquito d’Rivera and argentine pianist Pablo Zinger, he created the ensemble Triangulo, which according to American critic C. Berg helped «redefine the basic assumptions of chamber music». With this ensemble he has presented a diverse Latin American music repertoire for audiences throughout the world, and the ensemble recorded several CDs. One of these was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2001, and yet another was listed as “Record of the Year, 1997” by the Brazilian newspaper “O Estado de São Paulo”.