Fábio Caramuru’s music is colorful as terra roxa, a reddish purple soil found near his homeland of São Paulo, Brazil. Just like the fertile mix of minerals, gases, and liquids which enriches the ground for plant life, Caramuru’s work mixes fields such as cinema, music, and dance which prepare the heart for harvest. His music is earthy, yet precise. His chosen instrument is the piano: 88 keys coloring one ivory rainbow.

Early on, Caramuru divided his interests between two vocations. In addition to studying music, a time-based practice involving the geometry of silence and sound, he also studied architecture, a space-based practice involving the geometry of shadow and light. Perhaps his music reflects the architecture he admired as a child while walking along Avenida Paulista: lush European buildings with generous gardens and porches.

Caramuru’s musical structures, however, are not built from stone, steel, or concrete; rather from soul, feathers, and ocean breezes. Perceived from a bird’s-eye view, his music seems clear as a blueprint: the harmonies fuse surface with center while the melodies appear bright as white lines on a blue background. Fortunately, wandering through his compositions does not require a hard hat or technical degree. Appreciating Caramuru’s world of sound requires only a warm sense of wonder.

Brazil is a country of contrasts. Its megadiverse landscapes encompass plains, mountains, swamps, and forests. Although the inspiration for EcoMúsica | Aves occurred while Caramuru was traveling abroad, mingling with a different culture and geography, a lingering background of people and places remains central in all of his work.

“I can say Aves was totally inspired by the Japan tour made in April and May, 2017. I traveled about 1000 km, visiting eight cities, from Tokyo to Fukuoka, from east to west, playing to a special audience, discovering a completely new landscape, observing interesting urban configurations, listening to many sounds, meeting extremely kind and sensitive people. It was not a commissioned work, but a spontaneous tribute to that incredible culture. The album was accomplished very quickly, only three months after my arrival in Brazil.”

EcoMúsica | Aves swings between extremes of rhythm, melody, color, and texture. Flitting from phrase to phrase with the flick of a wing, its 20 songs sit perched one moment before exploding into flight the next. Some songs forage alone in the rain; others flock south to warmer climates. From birth to first flight, courtship to heartbreak, nest building to migration, the feathered souls within EcoMúsica | Aves are represented musically. Caramuru’s compositions celebrate the sheer joy of singing, grateful for full stomachs and bright skies.

Beyond beaks and talons, Aves is an extension of EcoMúsica, an ongoing project dedicated to studying Nature as a whole. More than a tribute to any single species, EcoMúsica communes with various sounds and images of life. Modeling form after function, Caramuru’s methods of composition are as dynamic as Nature’s methods of evolution.

“My creative process started by selecting the birds’ sounds. I took the criteria of diversity and musicality while considering the potential of how these sounds would interact with the piano. Having about 40 preselected recorded birds, I made some quick experiments while just improvising over them, trying to create some initial structures and motifs. I then selected 20 birds, having roughly in mind the way they could fit with my piano.

After this, my sound engineer prepared the birds’ foundation tracks, creating loops of about 5-minute duration for each track. During about one month, I improvised with this material, crystallizing motifs and structures, making several notes, and recording myself with these sounds to check the results and to improve the ideas. Note that I’m talking about improvisation.

Finally, during two recording sessions, using headphones to listen to the bird sounds, I recorded several takes, having the structures in mind, but always free to improvise while open to new ideas that frequently emerge. During the editing process, I gave the final format to each track, and made the “sound design” of the birds (when exactly they appear in the music, as well as setting the musical dynamics, and making adjustments in their combination with the piano).”

EcoMúsica | Aves represents the pinnacle of Caramuru’s work so far—merging a love of nature with a unifying musicality.

“Indeed, I guess this is unique because this work represents a synthesis of all my experiences so far. A mature work, it’s the result of my passion for several musical styles and genres of music, and of my unconditional love for nature. I began my career as a classical pianist, expanding my work field as a recognized performer of Brazilian music (Tom Jobim, Camargo Guarnieri, Heitor Villa-Lobos), an improviser, and a composer. This is not a “Brazilian” work at all. I think it sounds universal.”

If Caramuru could be any bird, he would be a seabird, gracefully spanning water and air, equally at home roosting in the canopy of an old growth forest as bobbing in the center of the Atlantic. Beyond a tribute to specific birds, the 20 songs on EcoMúsica | Aves also function as a tribute to specific people—the fans and friends that he made while traveling. Music, like love, is a force that cannot be seen; but when it whispers with quiet wings within one’s heart, it lifts one higher—and higher—toward a heavenly sky where we all belong.

Birds sing. Flowers bloom. Pianos take flight.

Note by Todd B. Gruel