

Submitted image / Leandro Cerqueira
Liberty indigenous Kristen Mather de Andrade released an album of Brazilian songs before this year and now is operating on a Christmas EP.

Kristen Mather de Andrade’s adore of Brazilian songs commenced at Liberty Higher School.
“My band director was Tom Ruggieri, who’s a fantastic drummer and fascinated in jazz,” she explained. “He gave me anything to pay attention to by Antonio Carlos Jobim. I beloved it. I listened to it so substantially that I began examining out much more Brazilian audio.”
She now has her very own collection of Brazilian audio to share. Her CD “Clarao” (which signifies “flash of light” in Portuguese) showcases the Liberty native’s skills on clarinet and as a vocalist and attributes tracks made to illustrate that Brazilian songs is “more than just bossa nova.”
Her means on the clarinet is perfectly-proven. She acquired her bachelor’s degree in clarinet efficiency from the Dana Faculty of Music and been given a expertise scholarship from DePaul College. Her pursuit of a master’s diploma there was sidetracked when she experienced a probability to audition for the West Issue Band.
“My trainer at DePaul University, Larry Combs, experienced been in the West Issue Band during Vietnam,” de Andrade stated. “He saw the auditions had been open up and instructed me it was a excellent band. I was lucky that working day and did properly, and they provided me the posture.”
She joined the band in 2007 and has been its principal clarinetist given that 2012. She also performs in its Quintette 7.
“I get a chance to do some seriously shifting things, like taking part in for funerals,” she reported. “It’s quite unfortunate, but it feels great to be equipped to contribute to somebody’s instant.
“Some of the even bigger points that have took place in my occupation, I acquired to engage in with the New York Philharmonic on the Fourth of July, which was great. For the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks in 2018, I received to play a few of clarinet solos in that performance. I don’t forget wondering how crazy it was, currently being just a kid in Youngstown working towards clarinet in the Liberty Substantial School Band. I never ever believed I would be actively playing a clarinet solo for the full nation on Television set. That was a outrageous moment, one I’ll often try to remember.”
Her skills as a vocalist have been on show fewer. During a taping of the NPR match present “Says You!,” de Andrade ended up singing various tunes, and the optimistic opinions was encouraging.
“At the Dana Faculty, everybody was quite open about hoping new items,” she reported. “I sang some jazz tunes with many combos, but (‘Says You!’) was the moment exactly where the gentle bulb switched on for me. … I recall feeling, this is so a great deal enjoyment. It was a minimal little bit of validation that I could do it. I have been incorporating singing to my performances due to the fact then.”
An additional bit of unexpected encouragement aided inspire “Clarao.” All through the 2016 Summertime Olympics in Brazil, de Andrade carried out a pair of Brazilian numbers on West Point’s Facebook website page. The online video went viral and even attracted some notice in the Brazilian media.
“Clarao” was made by Sergio Krakowski, a Brazilian musician who moved to New York in 2013, and he linked her with some of the other musicians in the location who grew up with this audio.
“There are a large amount of Brazilians residing in New York,” she said. “The much more I started out to study about Brazil, the extra I realized how large it is and how quite a few diverse varieties of new music there are. It turned crucial for me to share these other forms of audio.”
“Clarao” incorporates performs by composers considerably less nicely known in the U.S., this kind of as Severino Araujo and Rubens Leal Brito, as effectively as 4 previously unrecorded songs by Brazilian singer-composer Roque Ferreira.
“I experienced been singing some of his music that I preferred that I’d read on an album by a unique singer,” she explained. “Sergio explained, ‘I think I have a way to get in touch with him,’ and he questioned if he had any music he was ready to share. He despatched us four, and I ended up loving all four of them. It was so remarkable to history them.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has held her from staying in a position to perform lots of concert events to endorse the CD. She reported she’d like to arrive back to the space to do anything at the Dana School of Tunes.
In the meantime, she’s currently started operate on a Xmas EP she strategies to launch in advance of the holiday seasons.
“It’s sort of a classical crossover, carols done in a unique way,” de Andrade mentioned. “It’s maybe a small additional energetic or if you combined a very little little bit of a pop seem with with classical audio, a contemporary classical model.”










