ALEJANDRO BRITTES

Wednesday, June 4, 2025 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 7:30 PM

All Ages

Seated

This is a seated show with general admission, first-come-first-served seating. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request access accommodations, please go to our .

For Cedar-presented shows, online ticket sales typically end one hour before the door time, and then, based on availability, tickets will be available at the door.

The Cedar is honored to debut Brazil-based Argentine composer and accordionist Alejandro Brittes. Interpreting chamamé, a music and dance genre forged from Baroque and Indigenous Guaraní influences of southern South America. Chamamé has been declared as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO."

"" -San Francisco Classical Voice

Considered by The Boston Globe as the “Main exponent of Chamamé”, the composer, accordionist and researcher Alejandro Brittes explores his Chamamé heritage, an ancestral rhythm born from the encounter between the ritualistic musicality and the worldview of the Original Peoples – The Guaranis – and the Baroque Music taught in the Jesuit Missions in a cultural macro-region that encompasses Argentina, central and southern Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Brittes, a tireless champion of the music of the northeastern region of Argentina and neighboring countries,has spent the last three decades studying the origins and techniques of the Argentine folk music of chamamé while touring worldwide, introducing and enchanting audience members with this unique music. Traditionally played by duos or small bands featuring guitar, violin, double bass and accordion, chamamé originated from European and Indigenous peoples collaborating in the early 20th century to express joy and melancholy in equal parts, and Brittes is a chamamé master.Tonight on The Cedar stage, his trio will be presented.

Chamaméis a form of popular cultural expression that is mainly practised in the Corrientes province. Its key components include a style of ‘close embrace’ dancing where participants hold each other chest to chest and follow the music without set choreography. Other elements include musiqueada, a celebratory act that includes a party, prayer and sapukay, a typical phonation or cry accompanied by gestures and movements to convey emotions such as joy, sadness, pain, and bravery. The violin and vihuela were the original instruments used in Chamamé music, but the guitar, harmonica, two-row diatonic button accordion, bandoneon and double bass were later incorporated. The singing is rooted in worship songs. Historically, lyrics and poetry were in Guarani, the regional native language, but today, oral traditions are transmitted in the yopará dialect, a combination of Spanish and Guarani. Chamamé music and dancing are an important part of the regional identity and play major social roles as they are common features of community and family gatherings, religious celebrations, and other festive events. Chamamé highlights values such as love for one’s land, local fauna and flora, religious devotion and a ‘way of being,’ a Guarani expression pointing to the harmony between the human, natural and spiritual realms.

To learn more about  ALEJANDRO BRITTES:

• Visit his website here

Host or Publisher The Cedar Cultural Center