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The Brazilian
musician and composer Parana Bomfim is one of the most important representatives
of the contemporary percussive Afro-Brazilian music.
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Though the
music performed by Parana Bomfim is rooted in the traditional area, his
refined, partly very personally marked playing technique opens completely
new dimensions for Afro-Brazilian percussion. In Parana Bomfim's conception
percussive music is not only understood as rhythm but as melody, rhythm
and even harmonic elements as a whole: With differently tuned congas, as
well as with a differentiated beat technique, pitches and timbres are combined
with rhythmic structures, giving rise to a rich spectrum of musical ideas.
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Since eight
years of age he plays the sacred barrel drums in religious ceremonies of
Candomblé. Parana Bomfim (Baragunã) is alabê of the
Candomblé house Ilè Asé Yemojá Orukóre
Ògún in São Paulo. Already in the 1980s he recorded
several discs of Umbanda and Candomblé, today re-edited as CDs and
considered of the best of the genre.
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He explored
Brazil's traditional and popular music, studied classical music at the
Fundaçao das Artes de São Caetano do Sul in São Paulo
and translated elements of jazz in a creative way to the Brazilian context
and to his drums, his berimbau and a great variety of percussion instruments.
He also uses electronic midia in a creative and individual way in a series
of electrical-acoustic compositions.
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On Brazilian
as well as on European stages he played with well-known musicians of different
cultures and musical styles and participated in the recording of numerous
LPs and CDs. His search for new worlds of sound also lead him into other
artistic areas, to theatre, literature and plastic arts and especially
to dance projects with artists, who are not looking for a musical background
but for a symbioses between music and movement, for a living dialogue between
drum and body.
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