First ‘Gateway’ concert features family – JH News&Guide

Brazilian guitarist Sérgio Assad began composing and arranging music almost as soon as he picked up his six-stringer.

His father, a mandolinist, taught him folk songs, and as a young teen he began writing and arranging music for him and his brother, Odair, with whom he would form the international touring duo The Assad Brothers. Some of his compositions have become standards of the classical guitar repertoire. He has also created guitar duo music from works by Astor Piazzolla, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Alberto Ginastera, as well as baroque and modern composers from Scarlatti and Bach to Ravel and Gershwin. And, he has worked with soloists and ensembles such as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Paquito D’Rivera and the Turtle Island String Quartet.

No surprise, then, that his daughter, Clarice, would inherit his musical precociousness and become a much sought-after performer and composer, nor that the father and daughter would take to the international touring circuit themselves as a duo.

These two members of what has been called “Brazil’s First Family of Music” will appear together Thursday in Walk Festival Hall for the Grand Teton Music Festival’s first “Gateway” concert of the 2024 season.

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