Paulinho Moska at Fimba: music that rises from the ashes

The Brazilian singer and composer Paulinho Moska was last night the great protagonist of a new day of the 2023 edition of the Bariloche International Music Festival (Fimba), which also had outstanding presentations by the Guillo Espel Quartet, the local bandoneonist Toby Villa and the Ensemble Vocal Áurigae, the more.

It was the fifth date that, marked by incessant rain, gave continuity to the festival organized by the Government of Río Negro with the support of the Municipality of the City of Bariloche.

The public that attended the appointment with the 55-year-old artist from Rio de Janeiro in his first participation in Fimba -and on a trip in which he will also pass tonight at the Auditorio de Belgrano in Buenos Aires- found an assembly stage at the Teatro La Baita minimalist, consisting only of a chair, a microphone and two acoustic guitars.

But there was one more element: when the lights in the room went out, part of a documentary on the fire at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro began to be projected on a giant screen at the back of the stage in 2018, which caused the loss of a historical collection. and scientific built over 200 years.

The audiovisual focuses on David, a firefighter who went to put out the flames and who is also a luthier who makes musical instruments, specifically guitars, from the wood salvaged from the fires he put out.

David had already sold Paulinho a guitar before the accident, but given the immensity of the tragedy that devoured a large part of Brazilian history and left in ruins the palace where Dom Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil, once lived, the firefighter luthier started the Phoenix Project to help in the reconstruction of the Museum from the creation of instruments with what was recovered from the rubble. Moska is a sponsor of the project.

Then, as the musician explains in his portuñol, the minimalist touch of the staging takes on a new meaning: the two guitars that flank Paulinho are the product of David’s work and will be used to tour his most recent album, “Las guitarras fénix del National Museum”, and other great milestones in his repertoire.

The recital covered songs such as “Todo nuevo de nuevo” and “Lágrimas de diamante”, in a course that was accompanied by stories and anecdotes with other Latin American musicians, among which his work with Fito Páez in the production of “Hermanos” stands out. , his friendship with Kevin Johansen, with the Uruguayan Jorge Drexler or Lisandro Aristimuño.

Switching from one guitar to another according to the sound needs of each song, Moska captivated the audience that filled La Baita in a double function.

At the time of the encores, Paulinho had the pleasure of going through the creations of other great artists in the history of his country, such as Pixinguinha, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Joao Gilberto.

Meanwhile, just three blocks from La Baita, in the Center for Art, Science and Technology, the group La fragua in the foreground, Toby Villa later and finally the Guillo Espel Quartet composed a kind of stylistic triptych with the Argentine music of root open to different influences as a common denominator.

Earlier, the Áurigae Vocal Ensemble had inaugurated the event at the Nuestra Señora del Nahuel Huapi Cathedral, with a repertoire that went from Estonian Arvo Pärt (“Solfeggio”) and American Morten Lauridsen (“De Lux Aeterna”) to Argentines Guillermo Giono (“La rai del guarango”) and Mario Witis (“Digo la mazamorra” – with lyrics by E. Agüero and music by P. Carabajal).

The Fimba continues today as follows: the Antigua Camera group will be at 6:00 p.m. at Camping Musical Bariloche; Nano Stern and Fernando Cabrera together with the Chamber Ensemble of the Río Negro Philharmonic Orchestra will take the stage at La Baita at 7:00 pm and 10:00 pm; while the stage of the Municipal Center of Art, Science and Technology will be for Los Taura, at 8:00 p.m., Patagonia Tango at 9:00 p.m., and Rodolfo Mederos together with the Philharmonic String Ensemble at 10:00 p.m.