Name: Heloísa Fernandes in Concert
Start: 2025-02-23T19:00:00-06:00
Location: Epiphany Center for the Arts

$Helo\u00edsa Fernandes in Concert$

A pianist since the age of four, Heloísa Fernandes made her international debut to critical acclaim at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina in 2008, three years after releasing her debut album Fruto which featured her own compositions and unique arrangements of works by Pixinguinha and Caetano Veloso. The idea for her third album was born in Chicago: specifically with a Fazioli on the stage of PianoForte Studios in Chicago where she performed in 2014. The invitation to record a new album using this piano almost didn’t happen after she fell gravely ill. Once she recovered, Fernandes wanted the album, entitled Faces and released in 2016, to have the edge and risk-taking of an improvised concert, to be thoroughly in the moment.
The following year, she was invited to perform alongside legendary composer Philip Glass in the São Paulo stop of his commemorative tour "Philip Glass 80: Project More Piano.” Fernandes’ most recent album, Inzu (2019), was inspired by the biographical novel The Barefoot Woman by Scholastique Mukasonga: the title refers to a traditional type of dwelling in Rwanda. In Mukasonga’s account, Inzu safeguards the motherly and feminine spirit that gives strength to her mother, Stefania, to face the condition of exile that devastated the family during ethnic conflicts in the country. For the album, Fernandes composed three new works for the album – "Inzu," "Urugori," and "Stefania".
As part of our ongoing Brazilian Music Seres: Oí Brazil, part of our year-round Chicago Latino Music Series, Fernandes will perform one night only in Chicago at the Sanctuary of the Epiphany Center.