Stefano Bollani & Hamilton de Holanda
Biography Stefano Bollani & Hamilton de Holanda
Hamilton de Holanda
who makes his ECM debut here, is a major figure in Brazilian music. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1976, and raised in Brasilia, he began playing mandolin at the age of 5. Within a year he was playing live gigs and appearing on TV. From 1983 he also studied violin at the Brasilia Music School. Since the 1990s he has moved easily between the worlds of Choro, jazz and transcultural experiments, disinclined to acknowledge genre differences: “The important thing is that it sounds beautiful.” Hamilton’s collaborations with US mandolinist Mike Marshall helped boost his reputation beyond Brazil’s borders, and since then there have been more joint ventures: de Holanda has appeared with Richard Galliano, Béla Fleck, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and many others. Meanwhile he has continued to lead his own groups and to issue a steady stream of critically-regarded albums in contexts from solo (“Intimo”) to orchestral (“Sinfonia Monumental”).
Stefano Bollani
born 1972, has been no less prodigious. He too started at five years old and cannot recall a time when he was not playing piano. The instrument often seems like an extension of his personality and thought processes, a fast-moving mind finding expression in jump-cut music sequences and surreal juxtapositions. He has fairly romped through the idioms, his ECM “Piano Solo” disc characteristically moving from Prokofiev to the Beach Boys via Scott Joplin and the tango, a post-modernist with an admirable reluctance to take himself too seriously. He keeps finding new ways to address the virtuoso’s dilemma: What do you play when you can play anything? Multi-talented, he’s known in Italy also as author of books and as a TV show host; he tours with pop singer Irene Grandi, plays Gershwin at La Scala. And he returns to particular musical constellations that continue to inspire him. Amongst these: the duo with Enrico Rava, the Danish Trio with Jesper Bodilsen and Morten Lund (which recently recorded a new ECM session, augmented by Bill Frisell and Mark Turner). To these special groups add now the exciting project with Hamilton de Holanda. At the end of August and into September Bollani joins de Holanda for another round of concerts in Brazil.
