Bio

Grupo Anima at Associação Cultural Cachuera! Photo: Daniel Bittar.

The ANIMA Group was born in Brazil thirty years ago as a result of reflections on Brazilian musical interpretation and musical memory. The initial structure of the group was based on the movement of ancient music whose interpretative principles guide the group until today, and have been expanded and transformed through the multiple formations it has undergone since then.

Photos: Ricardo Ferreira

FUNARTE Prize for Brazilian Music – Ministry of Culture APCA Award – São Paulo Association of Art Critics V Carlos Gomes Award – Secretary of State for Culture, São Paulo Brazilian Popular Music Movement Award

ANIMA in his current formation, works in artistic collaboration in the elaboration of his musical shows with the musicians: Hugo Pieri – baritone; Ogã Leandro Perez – Afro-Brazilian singing and percussion; Silvia Ricardino – troubadour harp, research and arrangements; Paulo Dias – percussion, portable organ, research and arrangements; Gisela Nogueira – wire guitar, research and arrangements; Luiz Fiaminghi – Brazilian fiddles, research, arrangements, executive direction and production and Valeria Bittar – historical recorders, Brazilian indigenous flutes, research, arrangements, executive direction and production. In her project ENCANTARIA (2014-2018), ANIMA has the special participation of Marlui Miranda – singing, arrangements, Brazilian indigenous flutes, percussion and research by Argentine singer Cecilia Arellano. In his new musical show, MAR ANTERIOR, he has the participation of actor and percussionist Ogã Leandro Perez and the work of artist Rosana Paulino.

From 1991 onwards, the Brazilian fiddle played a central role in the formation of ANIMA, through musician, composer and researcher José Eduardo Gramani. With the introduction of this instrument originated in the rural Brazilian tradition of different regions, ANIMA expanded the scope of historical musical interpretation and its repertoire, adding to the European historical instrumentation (troubadour harp, harpsichord, organeto and recorders), voices and languages such as the wire viola, the Brazilian ten-string viola, the Brazilian, African and Middle Eastern percussion and the Brazilian indigenous flutes.

ANIMA’s shows are the result of research work on interpretation based on the music of non-literate communities, far from urban centers in Brazil and the music of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance. The constant dialogue woven by ANIMA between ethnomusicology, historical musicology, hermeneutics and contemporary theater, takes to the stage a musical script where non-linear time is present, facing the moment of presentation and the stage as a ritualized space-time , suitable for musical realization in a full sense. On the stage, the European Middle Ages and the European Renaissance are found in the music of the non-urban Brazilian oral tradition, both updated in the musical arrangements built by the interpreters and also proposed by members of the Group and guests. The repertoire is structured and stitched from a central theme at a space-time-instruments intersection, through a chamber language where a constant dialogue between past and present, popular culture and erudite culture is present on the stage.

In 2010/2011 he released the CD, named after the show, DONZELA GUERREIRA, sponsored by the SESC Seal of the State of São Paulo. Its launch has been carried out in important festivals and concert halls of ancient music and chamber music: Tage alter Musik Regensburg, Germany; Feldkirchen Pfingstfestival, Austria; St. Ambroix en Cevenne, France; Labeaume en Musiques, Ardèche, France; 41st. International Winter Festival in Campos do Jordão, Brazil and Festival “Rencontres Musicales de La Vallée de l´Alzette – RMVA”, Luxembourg and Güldener Herbst Festival, Weimar, Germany; INNOVANTIQUA Festival, Winterthur, Switzerland; Sala del Grecchetto-Biblioteca Sormani, Milan; Recife Virtuosi Festival. In 2013 she launched the musical show ENCANTARIA, which premiered at the INNOVANTIQUA Festival in Winterthur, Switzerland.

Photos: Daniel Bittar

He also recorded his work on the CDs: “Espiral do Tempo”, winner of the Movimento Movimento de Música Popular Brasileira – year 1997 – in the best instrumental CD category and the APCA Award – São Paulo Association of Art Critics – in the best category chamber music group, year 1998; in 1999, within the celebrations of 500 Years of Discovery of Brazil, he recorded and directed the CD “Teatro do Descobrimento”, with the conception and direction of the singer Anna Maria Kieffer; “Especerias”, winner of the V Carlos Gomes Award for classical music, granted by the São Paulo State Department of Culture, in the category of best chamber music group, year 2000; “Amares”, in the year 2003; and “Mirror” CD and DVD, years 2006 – 2008, sponsored by PETROBRAS.

ANIMA performs tours, presentations and workshops frequently in rooms and festivals aimed at chamber music, both in Brazil and abroad: Milan, Regensburg-Germany, Feldkirchen-Austria, St. Ambroix en Cevennes, Luxembourg, Weimar, Winterthur, New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Dallas, Santa Barbara, St. Louis, Portland, Miami, Ashville, Philadelphia, Calgary, Bogota, La Paz, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Sucre, Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Montevideo, Asunción, among others.

ANIMA, after thirty years of work, generated forms of action emblematic of its language:
– on the common axis of the intersections between popular culture and classical culture, ancient and contemporary music, the literate world and orality, all of its works are carried out through artistic collaboration between musicians for the collective elaboration and construction of musical arrangements and the development of dramatic-musical themes, which permeate all the research and interpretation of the repertoire.

ANIMA – musica mundana humana et instrumentalis, borrows its name from the book, De Institutione Musica, by the medieval philosopher Boethius (c. 480 – 526). In this text Boécio describes three types of music: mundane – the music of the universe, responsible for the harmony of the celestial elements and for the balance in the variation of the seasons of nature; human – the music of men, which allows consonance between the incorporeal activity of reason with the body, in addition to keeping the parts of the body in perfect adaptation; instrumentalis – instrumental music, produced by the various instruments built by man. ANIMA – vital principle of the soul; breath.