Brazilian artist, preservationist to perform Amazon indigenous music

She will appear next week as well with the Latin American Music Ensemble, Thursday (Nov. 15) and Sunday, Nov. 18. Both performances are scheduled at 8 p.m. in Auer Hall.

She is on the IU Bloomington campus for a month-long visit with the International Vocal Ensemble, supported by the Center for the Study of Global Change. She has studied the musical traditions of the Brazilian Amazon Indians for two decades and is widely recognized as the consummate performer of Amazon indigenous music. She has interpreted and adapted traditional chants and songs from many Brazilian nations. She has recorded, performed and toured with leading Brazilian musicians and composed music for movies, documentaries, television series and plays.

In 1995, she founded the Association IHU, Pro-Music and Indigenous Arts, a non-profit organization, and the IHU Publishing and Artistic Productions, a record label and production company. Since 1978, she has been coordinating lawyers, anthropologists and institutions to collaborate with the indigenous peoples and NDI Nucleo de Direito Indígena in seeking to correct a legislative loophole to specific authorized protection for indigenous communities.

In addition to numerous grants from foundations in Brazil, she has received grants for her research and production from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Rockfeller Foundation and the Tinker Foundation. In 1997, her CD, IHU, All of the Sounds received the Preises Der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik from the German Academy of Critics for best world music.

These Web sites provide information and sound files of her music:

http://www.maria-brazil.org/ihu.htm

http://www.actmusic.com/act5018.htm

Learn more about IVE and read about the group’s CDs:

http://www.indiana.edu/~ive

Appearing Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. Mathers Museum IU Bloomington Next week at IUB’s Auer Hall