Brasil Summerfest 2012!

Brazil plans to export some of their best musical talent to New York the week of July 21-28 and I, for one, plan to clear my schedule.  Now in its second year, Brasil Summerfest is a week of shows of Brazilian music at various venues around town.  The 2012 lineup promises to be a delightful combination of the familiar and the new, with established names such as Bebel Gilberto alongside relative unknowns such as hip hop singer Flavio Renegado.  The one I'm most excited about is a rising star named Luísa Maita, a young woman from São Pãolo who in 2010 was named by NPR as "a new voice of Brazil".  She started singing when she was a little kid, at first just doing radio jingles.  Now she's doing her own blend of bossa nova, MPB (Brazilian Popular Music), samba, and pop.  She's the kind of new musician whose shows you might have a hard time finding as a foreigner in Brazil, but she'll be right here in New York that week, working her musical magic.

I'll be doing more updates and calendar listings on Brasil Summerfest as more information is available.  For now, here's Luísa Maita singing her tune "Fulaninha", a song composed in the Northeastern Brazilian style known as baião.