THE LUCIANA SOUZA QUARTET
THE NEW BOSSA NOVA
Friday, 1/11/08, 8 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
$26 • $20 • $5*
Two-time Grammy nominee Luciana Souza trained at the New England Conservatory, singing with a voice critics call “elegant,” “sure,” and “beautifully balanced in tone.” Moving effortlessly among Bossa Nova, Samba, and swing, she covers material from traditional songs and Golijov operas to poetry by Pablo Neruda. The Times says that “Ms. Souza doesn’t mess around,” but others are more evocative: one critic reports that on hearing a Souza ballad, “a friend said, ‘I don’t know what the words mean, but I want to cry.’”
“If the Great God of Art told me I could listen to only one kind of popular music for the rest of my life, and that it couldn’t be jazz, I’d take a deep breath --a very deep breath-- and say, “Okay, make it Brazilian.” That’d be a trick answer, though, since it would let me continue listening to Luciana Souza.”
--Terry Teachout, Washington Post
Luciana Souza on the web: