Hamilton de Holanda

Hamilton de Holanda website

• biography •

Virtuosic, brilliant and unique - those are some of the adjectives used to describe this musician who sets world audiences ablaze, developing a career studded with awards.
Hamilton de Holanda started to play at 5 on a traditional 8-string "bandolim" (Brazilian mandolin). Later he added two extra strings, to a total count of 10, and reinvented it: he disentangled this emblematic Brazilian instrument from the legacy of some of its influences and styles, to make it a global instrument. In the US, the press soon dubbed him the Jimi Hendrix of bandolim.

At 31 this musician from Rio de Janeiro has evolved a characteristic way of playing. His phrasing, the extra strings and his powerful sound, combined to the speed of the solo passages and improvisations, are inspiring a new generation and a new sound. Is this jazz, samba, rock'n'roll, pop music, lundu, choro? Who cares? Hamilton is not so much after innovation than music focusing on beauty and spontaneity. He has in front of him a new world rife with possibilities. His North Star is the notion that "Modernity IS Tradition": the point is neither the past nor the future, but their relationship, as they merge in the present moment, here and now.

Choro, his main influence as a child and youth, finds itself transformed - not in a purist way, but in addition to his other references. "I'm asked whether what I do is 'new choro'. New choro? I don't understand. That's perhaps because I play the bandolim. Choro is like the Mona Lisa: do you think she needs a touch-up? No! Choro too is continued by the wonderful artistry of musicians like Luperce, Jacob and Pixinguinha. Since the tradition is perpetuated, you don't have to do anything but appreciate it. In fact, what I do is a synthesis of this information with an influence from choro, bossa nova, jazz, sounds from the street etc. It is a music that does not need labels to exist. "It just has to be beautiful", says Hamilton.

His trajectory includes the double Best Instrumentalist Awards (unanimously), in the two categories of academic music and popular music, of the single edition of the "Icatu Hartford of Arts" in 2001. This prize enabled him to live one year in Paris; this gave international wings to his musical work.
In January 2005 at Midem (the main music trade show in the world), he performed the launching concert of the Year of Brazil in France, and his CD "1 byte 10 strings" - the first 10-string solo bandolim album ever - receive the notable distinction of [musical] "Choc" from Europe's premier musical periodical Le Monde de la Musique.
Hamilton was affectionately dubbed "Prince of Bandolim" in the French press, and "King" in the Brazilian press (Revista Bravo). Such figures as Ivan Lins, Hermeto Pascoal, Maria Bethânia, Djavan and João Bosco consider him as "One of the best musicians in the world".

In 2007 he was nominated for the Latin Grammy for the Best Instrumental recording for "Brasilianos" with its band, the Hamilton de Holanda Quintet, in competition with names such as Chick Corea and Béla Fleck. The quintet also won the TIM award and the title of Best Group from Jazz+ magazine, and Hamilton himself, that of Best Instrumentalist of 2007.
He recently performed the Brazilian national anthem in Rio de Janeiro for the opening ceremony of the Parapanamerican Games.
Hamilton appears in various major events and festivals in Brazil and internationally. He has shared stages with Maria Bethânia, Ivan Lins, João Bosco, Seu Jorge, John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Richard Galliano, Richard Bona, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones among others.

His production, in 2008, "BRASILIANOS 2", entirely consists of some his own compositions. It is the continuation of its cultural effort for accessibility to the general public of modern Brazilian music.
In 2007 he released the solo CD "Intimo" (Adventure Music), recorded in various hotel rooms worldwide, bringing democratization and accessibility to the recording technique itself, and a marvellous duet with pianist André Mehmari, "Continua Amizade" - both for the Deckdisc/Adventure Music label.

He released in 2010 a duet with one of his references, the player bandolim Joel Nascimento, who is turning 70 this year and a duo recorded live January 2008 with his good friend Yamandu Costa.
His discography also includes guest appearances in CDs and DVDs by Djavan, Cesaria Évora, Beth Carvalho, Zélia Duncan, Dona Ivone Lara, Ivan Lins and João Bosco, among others.

In the beginning of 2011 he just released another CD with Mehmari, this time with the music of Egberto Gismonti and Hermeto Pascoal, "GismontiPascoal".

With a splendid technique and absolute brasilian-ness, onstage or in the studio, Hamilton combines dazzling playing and performance filled with emotion. He is utterly versatile, and feels at ease in any type of line-up: solo, with an orchestra, duet, power trio etc.

He recorded the ECM CD in duo with Stefano Bollani "O que serà", after 3 years of concerts in Europe and Brazil.



SAMBA DE CHICO

Hamilton de Holanda is perhaps the most important instrumentalist that Brazil has introduced to the world in recent decades.
He could gain similar global recognition as Baden Powell in the 1960's or Hermeto Pascoal in the 1970s.
Like those mentioned, Hamilton is not only a brilliant technician, but also deeply rooted in Brazilian music tradition.
In his case however, this couldn't be any different, since his instrument is the Bandolim - the Brazilian Mandoline - which has a long and rich tradition in Samba and Choro, genres whose history go back a 100 years and that represent the two cornerstones of the Musica Popular Brasileira (MPB).

Another cornerstone of the MPB, though in earlier times, is the singer, composer and poet Chico Buarque.
Even though he is one of the songwriters who began their careers in the post-bossa phase in the mid 1960's, unlike his contemporaries Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, he never flirted with rock and psychedelia.
Instead, he contented himself with the richness of the primordial Brazilian musical forms, Samba and Choro play an important role in his work. Hamilton de Holanda's 29th album "Samba de Chico" is a tribute to Chico Buarque and his music as well as to 100 years of Samba.

The selected songs are almost exclusively from the beginning of Chico's career - the newest, "Piano na Mangueira", was written with Antonio Carlos Jobim. It's a tribute to Rio's famous samba school, and is already 23 years old. Titles like "A Rita", "Quem te viu, quem te vê" or "Roda viva" from the 1960s, have since been incorporated into the Brazilian DNA: There is hardly anyone in the country who can't sing these songs. "Construção", "Deus lhe pague" or "Morena de Angola" show the angry Chico of the 1970s, who was in a constant battle with the censors of the military dictatorship and who had to go to exile in Italy for a year in the beginning of the decade.
Hamilton de Holanda interprets these songs, all of which are classics in his country, equally virtuos and playful, as respectful as unconventional. He plays his ten chords Bandolim simultaneously as the melody and the accompaniment.
He harmonizes breathtakingly with the percussion of Thiago da Serrinha and the bass of (alternately) André Vasconcellos and Guto Wirtti, with whom he has been collaborating for years. Also with the Italian pianist Stefano Bollani, the guest appearance on two tracks, he has an old partnership: in 2013 they released the joint album "O que será", whose title song was written by Chico Buarque. The title "O meu amor" and "Atrás da porta" were interpreted by the multi-award winning Spanish singer Silvia Pérez Cruz. And Chico Buarque himself gives the project his compliment by singing "A volta do malandro" and "Vai trabalhar vagabundo" two of his own songs, that he had not sung for decades.

Hamilton de Holanda, born in 1976, grew up in a family of musicians in the capital Brasilia.
By the age of five he received from his grandfather a Bandolim as a Christmas present: "It started from there and ever since I have not let go of this instrument," he said. In 1997 he released his first CD (along with his brother, the guitarist Fernando César, as Dois de Ouro) and quickly became an important name in the Brazilian scene.
He played on albums by Djavan, Maria Bethânia and Seu Jorge. His reputation spread quickly internationally and he was invited, among others, by Cesaria Evora, Richard Galliano and Mayra Andrade into their studios.
On his own, he published in rapid successions albums with guest appearances like Wynton Marsalis, Chucho Valdés or Omar Sosa.
He has also worked with artists like Chick Corea, Bela Fleck, Buena Vista, Melody Gardot and Carminho.

Wayne Shorter was recently asked which musician he'd like to work with, and he said Hamilton.
The German jazz legend Rolf Kühn, with whom he has just recorded together for Rolf's next album, to be released in autumn, said: "Hamilton is one of the most interesting and best instrumentalists with whom I've ever played in my career.
" Karl Lippegaus designated Hamilton de Holanda in his criticism of the album "Pelo Brasil" for "Fono Forum" as "one of the greatest string artists of our time" and simply "genius". "Samba de Chico" provides further meaningful evidence that these attributions are most probably correct.

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