+

present…

SÉRGIO and ODAIR ASSAD | Guitars 

Saturday, February 9 , 2019  | 7:30pm
Herbst Theatre

GIULIANI Variazioni Concertanti, Opus 130

ALBÉNIZ Cordoba from Cantos de España, Opus 232

El Puerto from Iberia

PIAZZOLLA From Suite Troileana

(arr. Sergio Assad) Bandoneón
Zita

RODRIGO Tonadilla para dos guitarras

Allegro ma non troppo
Minueto pomposo
Allegro vivace

INTERMISSION

VILLA-LOBOS Choros No. 5, “Alma Brasileira”

(arr. Sergio Assad)

JOBIM Crônica da Casa Assassinada

Trem para Cordisburgo
Chora Coração
Jardim Abandonado
Milagre e palhaçhos

GISMONTI Palhaço
(arr. Sergio Assad) Baião malandro

S. ASSAD Suite Brasileira

Baiao
Cançao
Samba

Sérgio and Odair Assad are represented by Opus 3 Artists

470 Park Avenue South, 9th Floor North, New York, NY 10016   opus3artists.com

For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org  | 415.392.2545 |  1

ARTIST PROFILES
San Francisco Performances presents the duo
of Sérgio and Odair Assad for the seventh
time; they first appeared in 1992. They also ap-
peared with Clarice Assad in 2016, and Odair
performed solo in 2012.
Brazilian-born brothers Sérgio and
Odair Assad have created a new standard
of guitar innovation, ingenuity and ex-
pression. Their exceptional artistry and
uncanny ensemble playing come from a
family rich in Brazilian musical tradition
and studies under guitarist/lutenist Mo-
nina Távora, a disciple of Andrés Segovia.
Their virtuosity has inspired a wide range
of composers to write for them includ-
ing Astor Piazzolla, Terry Riley, Radamés
Gnattali, Marlos Nobre, Nikita Koshkin,
Roland Dyens, Jorge Morel, Edino Krieger,
and Francisco Mignone. Sérgio Assad has
added to their repertoire by composing
music for the duo and for various musical
partners both with symphony orchestra
and in recitals. They have worked exten-
sively with such renowned artists as Nadja
Salerno-Sonnenberg, Gidon Kremer and
Dawn Upshaw. Odair is based in Brussels
where he teaches at École Supérieure des
Arts. Sérgio resides in Chicago and travels
to San Francisco, where he is on the faculty
of the SF Conservatory.
The Assad Brothers began playing to-
gether at an early age and their interna-
tional career began with a major prize at
the 1979 Young Artists Competition in
Bratislava. Their repertoire explores folk,
2  |  For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org  | 415.392.2545
jazz and various styles of Latin music.
Their classical repertoire includes tran-
scriptions of the great Baroque keyboard
literature of Bach, Rameau, and Scarlatti
and adaptations of works by Gershwin, Gi-
nastera, and Debussy; thus making their
touring programs a compelling blend of
styles, periods and cultures.
They have collaborated with such no-
table orchestras as the Los Angeles Phil-
harmonic, the orchestras of São Paulo and
Seattle, and the Saint Paul Chamber Or-
chestra. 
In 2004, Sérgio and Odair arranged a
special tour featuring three generations
of the Assad family including their father,
Jorge Assad (1924–2011), on the mandolin
and the voice of their mother, Angelina
Assad. GHA Records released a live record-
ing and a DVD of the Assad family live at
Brussels’ Palais des Beaux-Arts. In 2009
they were featured performers on James
Newton Howard’s soundtrack to the movie
Duplicity. In 2011 and 2012, the brothers
toured a project entitled De Volta as Raizes
(Back to Our Roots) with Lebanese-Ameri-
can singer Christiane Karam, percussion-
ist Jamey Haddad, and composer/pianist
Clarice Assad.  Also that season Sérgio
Assad premiered his concerto Phases with
the Seattle Symphony and was nominated
for two Latin Classical Grammys for his
works Interchange and Maracaipe.
 Other recent touring projects include a
reunion of the Assad Family in Qatar and
across Europe with a finale at Le Palais des
Beaux Arts, a tour and recording with Pa-
quito D’Rivera called Dances from the New
World, and a tour with jazz guitarist Rome-
ro Lubambo. In 2015–2016 they toured with
Yo-Yo Ma and other musicians from the
Silkroad Ensemble.
The Assads have made a number of re-
cordings on Nonesuch and GHA including
Sérgio and Odair Assad Play Piazzolla and
Jardim Abandonado, which both received
Latin Grammys. They recorded Obrigado
Brazil with Yo-Yo Ma, with Sérgio arrang-
ing several of the works and were featured
on Yo-Yo Ma’s chart topping release, Songs
of Joy & Peace, alongside other guests as di-
verse as James Taylor and Dave Brubeck.
Both recordings won Grammy awards.
In 2015, Sérgio and Odair celebrated
their 50th anniversary as a duo. Their
first ever performance together was in the
fall of 1965 on a Brazilian television show
called Boussaude. The celebration includ-
ed a 27-city tour in Brazil followed by ten
more in North America, highlighted at
the 92nd Street Y in New York. The Guitar
Foundation of America awarded the broth-
ers with its Lifetime Achievement Award
in June 2015.
PROGRAM NOTES
Variazioni Concertanti,
Opus 130
MAURO GIULIANI
(1781–1829)
Mauro Giuliani was the most famous
guitarist-composer in Vienna, perhaps
in all of Europe, during the first two de-
cades of the 19th century. Born in south-
ern Italy, he was greatly influenced by the
virtuosic and fluent style of Rossini. In
1806, at the age of 25, he settled in Vienna
and became part of a musical establish-
ment that included Beethoven, Hummel,
Weber, Diabelli and other leading musi-
cians. His activities ranged from the com-
position of beginners’ guitar exercises to
performances of his own guitar concerti,
and even a performance in the world pre-
miere of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as
a featured guest cellist. It was, however, as
a guitar virtuoso that Giuliani was highly
esteemed. A critic for the 19th century
British guitar journal Giulianiad wrote: “In
his hands the guitar became gifted with a
power of expression at once pure, thrilling
and exquisite. He vocalized his adagios
to a degree impossible to be imagined by
those who never heard him—his melody…
was invested with a character not only sus-
tained and penetrating, yet of so earnest
and pathetic description as to make it ap-
pear in reality the natural characteristic
of the instrument. In a word he made the
instrument string.” Giuliani’s music—a
mercurial combination of grace, lyricism
and dazzle—is always well wrought, and
on occasion crosses to deeper levels.
Cordoba from
Cantos de España, Opus 232
El Puerto from Iberia
ISAAC ALBÉNIZ
(1860–1909)
Isaac Albéniz was one of the most signif-
icant figures in Spanish cultural circles at
the close of the 19th century. A remarkable
child prodigy and raconteur, he claimed
that he ran away from home at age 12,
sailed to Argentina as a stowaway and sub-
sequently traveled to America, where he
paid his way by playing the piano in honky
tonks and spending some time playing at
San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf. On his
return to Europe he became a serious stu-
dent of composition. He fell under the spell
of Spain’s indigenous music and was influ-
enced to a high degree by both flamenco
and the guitar. The legendary Francisco
Tárrega made transcriptions of Albéniz’s
piano music, and an appealing though
undocumented tale says that Albéniz, on
hearing Tárrega’s performance of his tran-
scriptions, declared the music had found
its rightful home. Tárrega’s practice of per-
forming Albéniz’s music has been enthusi-
astically followed by guitarists to this day.
Córdoba is an impressionistic portrait of an
evocative Spanish city alive with the vital
evanescent qualities of flamenco, national
song and dance and Moorish exoticism. El
Puerto is a portrait of the same picturesque
gate to the Moorish palace the Alhambra
that was to later inspire Debussy. The piece
is a movement from Albéniz’s Iberia, his
brilliant crowning masterpiece and final
tribute to the country he loved.
From Suite Troileana
ASTOR PIAZZOLLA
(1921–1992)
By nationality Astor Piazzolla was Ar-
gentine, though all four of his grandpar-
ents were Italian immigrants and he was
something of an uprooted migrant him-
self. Raised in New York he also lived at
various times in Argentina, Rome and
Paris. He studied composition in Paris
with Nadia Boulanger and made his career
as a composer and performer inspired by
the traditional Argentine tango. Like fla-
menco and the blues, tango developed as
the voice of a disadvantaged social group.
A product of the musical tango culture
of Buenos Aires, Piazzolla used the influ-
ences of 19th century opera, jazz and 20th
Century classical composers to create a
more urgent, passionate extension of the
genre, his own contemporary chamber
music. He liked to quote Tolstoy who said,
“tell the story of your village and you tell
the story of the world.” Piazzolla remained
true to his roots, but he told his story so
skillfully that musicians and audiences
throughout the world have discovered
him. His primary medium was a quintet
of bandoneón, violin, guitar, piano and
bass. He has written five Tangos for solo
guitar, a suite for flute and guitar, as well
For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org  | 415.392.2545 |  3
as the three-movement Tango Suite dedi-
cated to the Assad Duo. Suite Troileana was
originally written for Piazzolla’s quintet as
homage to Aníbal Troilo, one of the most
important tango musicians and Piazzolla’s
mentor. The music is alternately elegiac
and celebratory but always lyrical and pas-
sionate. Bandoneón gives the impression of
a magnificent tango solo and Zita, a por-
trait of Troilo’s wife, is full of humor and
the love of lif
Tonadilla para dos guitarras
JOAQUÍN RODRIGO
(1901–1999)
Joaquin Rodrigo was born on November
22 (feast day of Saint Cecelia, patron saint
of music) in 1901. His musical abilities were
soon apparent, despite blindness caused by
an early childhood illness. After initial mu-
sical studies in Spain, he completed his edu-
cation in Paris. His reputation was secured
with the immediate success of his Concierto
de Aranjuez. The Tonadilla for two guitars is a
lovely Spanish genre piece. The opening Al-
legro ma non troppo, concise and brilliant, es-
tablishes a brisk dialogue between the two
guitars punctuated by powerful rasgueado.
The second movement, Minueto pomposo,
has an ABA form. The lyrical, occasionally
mischievous accents of the outer section
contrast with an expressive song of exalta-
tion again underscored by bold rasgueado.
The Allegro vivace ends the work; a dazzling
first section is followed by slow music em-
phasizing the warm sonorities of the two
guitars before concluding in a frenzied re-
turn of the opening motif. music composed by Jobim.
Choros No. 5, “Alma
Brasileira”
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS
(1887–1959)
The great Brazilian composer Heitor
Villa-Lobos was also a guitarist who
wrote with both knowledge and love of
the instrument. As a boy he played the
guitar in street bands at weddings, carni-
vals, cafes and theaters. As a young man
he became fascinated with the music of
Brazil’s indigenous people and joined a
scientific expedition that canoed up the
Amazon in order to learn the music, in-
struments and ceremonial rites of the
Indian tribes in the area. Although he
went to Paris in 1923 “not to study, but
to show what I have accomplished,” the
textures and harmonic practices in the
music of Debussy and his contemporaries
made a profound impression. The ensu-
ing music of Villa Lobos is an engaging
combination of European classicism,
Brazilian popular, and indigenous Indian
music. Villa-Lobos defined the choros
as “ a new form of musical composition,
a synthesis of the different forms of In-
dian and Brazilian popular music, always
transformed by the composer’s personal-
ity.” Choro No. 5 opens in a languid style
with rubato reminiscent of the popular
serenades of turn of the century Rio de
Janeiro. Its contrasting middle section is
a bold syncopated impression of Indian
culture. The subtitle of the piece trans-
lates as “Brazilian Soul.”
Crônica da Casa Assassinada
ANTÔNIO CARLOS JOBIM
(1927–1994)
Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jo-
bim established the popularity of bossa
nova and contributed to its development
with the musicians Garoto, João Gilberto,
Luis Bonfa and Laurindo Almeida. After
the success of his song The Girl from Ipane-
ma, Jobim became a famous name in North
America. He appeared on television spe-
cials and recorded both with Frank Sina-
tra and solo. His music had a profound ef-
fect on fans all over the world. Crônica da
Casa Assassinada was a 1959 novel by Lúcio
Cardoso telling the story of the moral and
social decline of a once rich and powerful
family. It was made into a film in 1971 with
Palhaço
Baião malandro
EGBERTO GISMONTI
(B. 1947)
Egberto Gismonti is a Brazilian guitarist
and composer accomplished in both jazz and
classical music. His mother’s family is Italian,
his father’s family is Lebanese Arab and all are
accomplished amateur musicians. He learned
from childhood to have a wide-open, unpreju-
diced musical imagination. His grandfather
would tell him that Bach, Samba, Arabian
songs and the sound of rumbling trucks were
all music he should learn to hear. He studied
piano and musicianship and taught himself to
play guitar by studying the music of Tárrega,
transcribing section’s of Bach’s Well-Tempered
 Sharon Isbin and
Romero Lubambo 10/13 * Thanks to Our Contributors:
Yamandu Costa and DIRECTOR’S LEVEL
Guto Wirtti 10/23 D’Addario Foundation
Hill Guitar Company
Paul Galbraith, guitar and Doug & Jeanne Monsour

Antonio Meneses, cello 11/3*

Tangent, Inc.
Curtis Renshaw Memorial Fund

Kazuhito Yamashita 11/17

Nadim Taleb
Curt & Margaret Weil

Ana Vidovic 12/8*

Felix & Maria Vergara
Grants For The Arts

Tommy Emmanuel, CGP 1/8

FOUNDER
Guitar Salon International
With Very Special Guest Donatello Bonato & Jane Kaplan
Bill & Catherine Young
John Knowles, CGP Travis & Sherry White
Sergio & Odair Assad 2/9* Ventzi Zhechev
BENEFACTOR
Internat’l Guitar Night 2/24 Richard & Linda Patterson
PATRON
Pablo Sainz-Villegas 3/2* Apple, Inc.
IBM
Kyuhee Park 3/16 Jon Kannegaard
Larry Whitehead
50 Oak Street 4/13 SPONSOR
KinderGuitar
Baris Baser
SPECIAL EVENT Steven & Carol Dimmick
“Aloha España” featuring Bettina Hughes
Pepe Romero and Rick & Diane Grech

Daniel Ho 4/27
Rick Sara
Clyde & Jooan Sugahara
Jaeheon Yi
* In association with SUSTAINING MEMBER
San Francisco Performances Charles Anderson
Catherine Clark
Robert Cohen
Bill Ghiorso ADVISORY BOARD
Carolyn Koo Sergio Assad
Keith & Ann Mangold Scott Cmiel
John Oster John D’Addario
Deborah Robbins Ruth A. Felt
& Henry Navas Dean Kamei
Larry Shaw Susan Lockwood
Roger Stoll David Pedersen

TICKETS + INFO
omniconcerts.com (415) 242-4500
Roger Ward Melanie Smith
Elizabeth Waters Nadim Taleb
REGULAR David Tanenbaum
Sandra Church Bill Young

4  |  For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org  | 415.392.2545

Clavier, and learning Baden Powell’s music
from records. He was encouraged by Antônio
Carlos Jobim and studied composition with
Nadia Boulanger and Jean Barraque. He has
composed for symphony orchestra, ballet,
chamber ensembles, piano and guitar and
has performed with Herbie Hancock, Airto
Moreira, Ralph Towner, Nana Vasconcelos
and others. His guitar playing makes exten-
sive use of reentrant tuning, guitars with ad-
ditional strings, and left hand tapping effects.
His music is characterized by episodic struc-
ture, hypnotic rhythms often derived from
Brazilian forms, varied and complex harmo-
nies and impressionistic, evocative moods.
Palhaço was originally written for piano. The
A P O L L O A C A D E M Y F O R H E A LT H A N D H U M A N I S M
A H E A LT H A N D C H A M B E R M U S I C
WO R K S H O P • F E S T I VA L • R E T R E AT
A Schubertiade
For Today
Chamber Music and Songs
of Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
AS EXPLORED BY THE
Alexander String Quartet,
mezzo soprano Kindra Scharich,
pianist Jeffrey LaDeur, A N D
musicologist Robert Greenberg
Join us for our 2019 workshop /
festival/retreat — an exploration that
extends from Schubert’s early songs
and string quartets to his mature
masterpieces such as the C major
cello Quintet and the song cycle
“Winterreise.”
For Tickets and More: sfperformances.org  | 415.392.2545 |  5
Assad version for two guitars keeps the form
of the original composition, while making
room for a long improvised section. Baião mal-
andro is an exuberant showpiece.
Suite Brasileira
SÉRGIO ASSAD
(B. 1952)
Born into a musical family in Brazil,
Sergio Assad began creating music for the
guitar not long after he began playing the
instrument. He learned Brazilian folk mel-
odies from his father and by age 14, he was
arranging and writing original composi-
PRESENTS
Designed for both playing and non-
playing chamber music enthusiasts,
this 3-day residential event will offer
all participants a chance to understand
the artistic and historical significance
of Schubert’s song and chamber music
literature. String quartet musicians will
have an opportunity to receive coaching
and perform selected Schubert works.
A rich program of yoga, meditation,
healthy food preparation and preventive
medicine, designed to increase body
awareness and enhance overall health,
will compliment the cultural activities.
tions for the guitar duo he had formed with
his brother, Odair. As a composer he has
completed more than 50 works, many of
which have become standards in the guitar
repertoire. The Suite Brasileira is a classical
exploration of Brazilian popular forms. The
Baião is a genre that originated with the na-
tive peoples in northeastern Brazil but now
incorporates elements of indigenous, mes-
tizo, African, and European musics. Cançao
is the Portuguese word for song. Samba is a
Brazilian musical genre with African roots
and a product of the West African slave
trade and African religious traditions.
—Program Notes by Scott Cmiel
September 5 –8, 2019
Ratna Ling Retreat Center
S O N O M A C O U N T Y, C A L I F O R N I A
For information and an application, visit:
apolloacademy.org
Apollo Academy for Health and Humanism