An Interview with Brazilian composer and conductor, Flávio Chamis

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By Travis Hare

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On November 19 and 20, 2024, PostClassical Ensembles will hold its first concert of the season, Legends of Brazil: A Musical Celebration for 200 Years of Friendship. The two-night event at The Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater will celebrate two hundred years of friendship and music between the United States and Brazil. PCE's special guest curator, Brazilian composer and conductor Flávio Chamis has been assigned the Herculean task of summing up two centuries of incredible and highly influential works from his home country.

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As difficult as that may be, Flávio is the perfect candidate to pull it off. After studying at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University and graduating in Orchestral Conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Chamis served as an assistant conductor to the one-and-only Leonard Bernstein on several occasions. Chamis also served as the Music Director of the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra in Brazil. He presently lives in Pittsburgh where he makes regular contributions as an instructor at both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Chamis is also passionate about combating stigma around mental health and is presently working on a project of that nature which you can read more about below. We recently caught up with him to get a sense of how he went about curating the Legends of Brazil concert.

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PCE: This concert celebrates 200 years of diplomatic relations between Brazil and the U.S. As you have lived in both places, what are the major similarities and differences that you have noticed between the two countries?‍

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Flávio: Wow, you could write a Ph.D. thesis on the topic! There are the obvious differences that we all know, like the weather, food, nature, arts, etc. Brazilians are arguably more inclined towards improvisation as well as to collectivism, while often being more casual in their social and professional interactions. Also, for both countries, the process of colonization still, to this day, affects the multi-ethnic societies’ social, political, economic and cultural identities. There is a big difference in the commitment to public education as there are great disparities between the US and Brazil’s public educational systems. In general, Brazil’s public schools are lagging behind in infrastructure and lack of qualified teachers. On the other hand, Brazil has a strong publicly funded healthcare system in which every Brazilian has the right to medical services and medicine at no cost, one of the largest programs of its kind in the world. The Brazilian Constitution states that “health care is a right for all and obligation of the state”.

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PCE: Do you think Brazil and America have influenced each other musically? If so, what examples can you point to?
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Flávio: The answer to this question can easily be heard in the final work that will be played on the concert at The Kennedy Center in November. André Mehmari, a superlative Brazilian musician just finished a new piece in which he takes two composers - one Brazilian and one American - and combines their melodies, rhythms and harmonies in such a way that particular elements, as well as mutual musical influences, become apparent to any attentive listener.

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PCE: For this concert you were tasked with showcasing 200 years of music from Brazil. That seems like a tall order! Can you talk a bit about your process for programming this concert and what you hope your choices to convey to listeners?
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Flávio: I am approaching this concert offering a panoramic view of Brazilian music in the last 200 years. It starts with the Zemira Overture, a piece written in the early 1800’s by Jose Mauricio Nunes Garcia, a priest born in Rio to bi-racial parents. He became a very prolific composer and when the Portuguese King Dom João VI transferred his court to Brazil in order to escape the advancing armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. Nunes Garcia was appointed Master of the Royal Chapel. His musical style was influenced by the classical Viennese composers, such as Mozart and Haydn. I also included pieces by Francisco Mignone and Heitor Villa Lobos, who were both born in 1897 and became the main exponents of Brazilian 20th Century classical composers. We could not leave out some of the well-known popular names, so be prepared for a sampling of Ernesto Nazareth, Chico Buarque de Hollanda and Tom Jobim. We will also be featuring the extraordinarily gifted pianist and composer André Mehmari with his Latin Grammy nominated Sonata for Viola and Piano.  Mehmari will be playing the piece with the American violist Tatjana Mead Chamis, to whom the piece was dedicated and released on her CD Viola Brasil. Finally, the grand finale is a specially commissioned new work, symbolizing the essence of this concert. It is an incredibly fun composition by Mehmari, based on melodies by Ernesto Nazareth and Scott Joplin, interweaving Brazilian and American musical styles in an extraordinarily creative way. 

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My main problem was to decide what to leave out, because there is so much good music in Brazil. 

PCE: This all sounds amazing! Were there any composers or pieces of music that you had to leave out for some reason that you wished you could have included? 
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Flávio: It was very easy to find works to program. My main problem was to decide what to leave out, because there is so much good music in Brazil. In fact, one might argue that music is Brazil’s best export! You can find it all over the world, and certainly all around the US, where it influenced and was influenced by jazz. Just go to any jazz club and very likely you’ll be listening to some Brazilian standards, with many people singing along to Girl From Ipanema, One Note Samba and so many others. 
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...music is Brazil’s best export!

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PCE: Finally, what's next for you after this concert? Where can PCE concert-goers learn more about your music and any upcoming project?

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Flávio: Right now I am working on a few different projects. I’m just finishing a set of five songs on poems by Ilse Weber, a Czech Jewish poet who was an inmate at the Teresienstadt ghetto. She worked as a nurse in the children’s ward and secretly wrote poems and songs about the camp life. When the children from the infirmary were ordered to be deported to Auschwitz, she volunteered to join them! Ilse Weber and her younger son Tomás perished in the gas chambers upon arrival. Each of the five songs is in a different language, and each language has a personal connection to Ilse Weber’s life. I am also starting to write a new musical about mental health and art, and for now, I will just disclose that one of the two main characters is Vincent Van Gogh. To anyone interested, some of my music can be found on online platforms like Spotify and iTunes. 

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Listen to PCE's Legends of Brazil Spotify playlist below!