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"To listen, dance and celebrate"
Jean Wyllys - Writer and journalist - Album Release
"Tecnomacumba is a work made with strenght and faith"
Mauro Ferreira, journalist - Newspaper "O Dia" - RJ
"Many beliefs, a single energy"
Ailton Magioli, journalist - Newspaper "O Estado de Minas"
It has been a while since I’ve been listening, with joy and curiosity, to a woman’s voice that impresses by its firm tone, clarity of tone and natural ability to stay on key. I’ve first heard it by chance, on the car’s radio, and it has always since made me ask myself: who is this singer who has this clear voice (without vibratos) the most impressive I one I’ve heard in a long time? Whose is this full-bodied and delicate voice? Whose are these firm glissandos full of experimental efects?
Learning Rita Ribeiro’s name I found answers to all of those questions.
Now, in part searching to include significant meanings for her vocal habilities, Rita developed this project which she named Tecnomacumba. The songs and beats of the african-brazilian religions in synergy with electronic instruments’ rhythms created a rich, honest and suggestive result.
Tecnomacumba is an album of impeccable professional level which proves that Brazil can stand on its own feet.
The combination of rhythms and timbres of electronic music and the actual instruments played by the musicians is very well balanced. The repertoire is an anthology of compositions about the african religion themes in Brazil – based on traditional songs always present in these religious celebrations.
(...)
There is a lacework of themes, a net of memories and references that give a special texture to this work. The result is elegant pop music in which a great band is supported by the electronic-techno sounds.
But once more, what really stands out is Rita’s voice, her appealing selfconfidence (which is something rare to find), her full-bodied timbre, her fancy ornaments – because they are genuine – and her noble Brazilian northern traditional roots.
This album has an intriguing future and may tell us more than what it appears to say right now. Let’s listen and wait.
- Caetano Veloso, singer and composer
Discography
1997 - RITA RIBEIRO
1999 - PÉROLAS AOS POVOS
2001 - COMIGO
2006 - TECNOMACUMBA
Photos
Bio
Rita Ribeiro was born in the Brazilian Northern state Maranhão and after living in the capital São Luís, where she started her career as a singer, emerged as outstanding performance in Brazilian music in 1996.
In 1997, already living in São Paulo, she recorded her first CD titled "Rita Ribeiro", produced by Mário Manga and Zeca Baleiro. The CD and the concert Rita Ribeiro, after performance in several Brazilian capitals, brought national recognition to this singer from Maranhão.
In 1998 she signed contract with MZA Music, recording company of producer Marco Mazzola, and still under guidance of maestro Mário Manga, launched in 1999 her second CD, "Pérolas aos Povos", receiving exceptional praise by both public and critics. In the same year, along with Ney Matogrosso, Milton Nascimento, Zeca Baleiro and Chico César, performed in the Brazilian night of the "Montreux Jazz Festival", Switzerland, and was invited to perform at the "Festival Brasil - Caracas" in Venezuela, achieving great international dimension in her musical career.
In 2000, following the launch and marketing of the CD "Pérolas aos Povos", Rita Ribeiro was invited to participate in the Festival "Todos os Cantos do Mundo", sharing the stage with Lokua Kanza, considered one of the great exponents of African Pop Music; and still in the same year, had her CD launched in the United States and Canada by the record company Putumayo World Music, resulting in the realization of a tour between August and September 2000, through the main American and Canadian cities, among them San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto and Montreal, to audiences of 15 thousand people.
The result of this enterprise led Rita Ribeiro to be nominated amongst the best in the world to the 43rd Grammy Awards, in the category Best Latin Pop Album, in February 2001.
Still in 2001, the singer launched her 3rd CD "COMIGO", produced by Marco Mazzola, co-produced by herself and her partner Pedro Mangabeira, and distributed by Abril Music record company.
But their popularity, always growing, even with the increased Tecnomacumba innovative, the result of an intervention that was in cultural poster for four years, and launched in 2006 by Manaxica seal products with distribution of the record label Biscoito Fino.
Recently, Rita Ribeiro premiered next to Jussara Silveira and Teresa Cristina, competed in the show praised Three Girls from Brazil, with musical direction of conductor Jaime Alem, and currently produces the repertoire of her new CD to be launched in 2008.
TECNOMACUMBA PROJECT
The music of the Brazilian cults
THE RESEARCH
Singer and composer Rita Ribeiro carried out research into music in popular religiousness throughout Brazil, especially in the state of Maranhão. In her wanderings she rescued some chants and researched the repertoire of great Brazilian composers such as Jorge Benjor, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Dorival Caymmi, among others who also work with those references.
She noticed that Brazilian Popular Music bears strong influence of the rhythms of African-Brazilian origin. She also realized that in ritual manifestations, music and dance are important elements in channeling energies, bringing people closer to sacredness.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
1. To highlight the strong musicality in Brazilian cults of African and Indigenous origins;
2. To present to the public a repertoire of songs done by great names of Brazilian music, inspired by the popular religiousness of Brazilians and gathered from popular chants, songs of public domain;
3. To foster, in culture, practices that absorb all differences of race and creed;
4. To promote joyful and festive entertainment, where music and dance are understood as forces of transformation.
THE IDEA
The Tecnomacumba project was devised by singer Rita Ribeiro, and it strives to bring songs by great names of Brazilian Music to the pop-electronic universe, revering the strength of sacredness in the everyday lives of people throughout several parts of Brazil.
Thus, the project seeks to present chants that reveal orixás (mythical deities in Brazilian Candomblé), caboclos (ancient indigenous ancestors) and catholic saints that are present in the imagery and practices of this Brazilian religiousness, using technology as a musical tool and highlighting their aesthetic pattern.
THE EXPERIENCE
Rita Ribeiro first experimented with this universe when she recorded in her first CD the chant of Cabocla Jurema, evincing in the musical arrangement the encounter of "Mata" and "Crioula" drums common in the popular culture of Maranhão with electronic beats.
Since then, the singer carried on with her research, trying out new approaches with the respect she always devoted to traditions, which resulted in this project that is capable of bringing the strength of these chants and mantras into the universe of electronic music. It is a joyful and pleasant project.
THE CONCERT
In Tecnomacumba, the
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