Brazilian guitar greats to share Macky stage

Genre-crossing performers are a signature of the CU Presents Artist Series, and this week’s offering, the penultimate concert of the 2014-15 season series, is a striking example.

The Assad Brothers, Sérgio and Odair, are among Brazil’s most famous classical guitarists and one of the world’s greatest guitar duos.

But Thursday night at Macky Auditorium, the duo becomes a trio as the brothers are joined by countryman and jazz guitar virtuoso Romero Lubambo for a concert that will center on Samba and Choros, two quintessentially Brazilian genres.

Sérgio Assad, who is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, said this trio is the fulfillment of a long-standing desire.

“Although he’s a very good friend, we have never done a full concert with Romero before this tour,” Assad said. “He is an amazing improviser and shows the ‘other side’ of the instrument from what we typically do.”

Not that the Assads, who are steeped in formal classical training, do not have the traditional Brazilian genres in their blood.

“Of course we grew up listening to it,” Sérgio said, “and we are excited to explore its possibilities in trio form.”

He noted they will be performing some great arrangements that provide a window to traditional Brazilian music. While there will be improvisation, Lubambo will be doing most of it.

The Assads have been playing together for 50 years.

“We were very young when we started playing together,” Sérgio said, “and back then, we started with Brazilian music. Rehearsing is somewhat more difficult now, with Sérgio based in California and Odair in Belgium, which is one reason they always look forward to their tours.

While Thursday’s program will have “a lot of excitement,” Sérgio said it will have all the trappings of a classical concert.

“It’s basically a chamber program with some improvisation, and the repertoire happens to come from these Brazilian styles. We bring what we are, which is the ‘classical’ side, and working with a musician from the other side gives us a chance to explore and blend.”

While an integral event within the Artist Series, the performance of the Assads and Lubambo also coincides with the CU College of Music’s second International Guitar Festival and Competition, which takes place Thursday through Saturday.

Guitar professor and festival director Nicolò Spera said the inaugural festival in 2013 was a great success and that one of its fruits was the collaboration with CU Presents for the biennial event.

The festival kicks off at 10 a.m. Thursday with a two-hour masterclass given by the three visiting artists at Macky in advance of their evening concert. Two student duos and two soloists will receive instruction from the Assads and Lubambo on the big stage. Like all Guitar Festival events (other than the Artist Series concert), the masterclass is free and open to the public.

Other highlights include a performance by baroque lute virtuoso Nigel North and classical guitarists SoloDuo at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Grusin Music Hall in the Imig Music Building and, of course, the three-day competition, which brings 41 guitarists from 16 countries.

Four finalists will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Grusin, and the audience will be given a chance to vote on the performances.

“We really want there to be audience participation and investment,” Spera said.

Half the competitors are hosted by local families, Spera said.

“We really want to make Boulder a classical guitar destination,” he said, “and we are on that path.”