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Luiz Floriano Bonfá
Biography
Luiz Floriano Bonfa ((17 October 1922, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 12 January 2001, Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian composer.
Luiz Bonfá began studying with Uruguayan classical guitarist Isaías Sávio at the age of 11.
Bonfá first gained widespread exposure in Brazil in 1947 when he was featured on Rio's Rádio Nacional, then an important showcase for up-and-coming talent. He was a member of the vocal group Quitandinha Serenaders in the late 1940s. Bonfá's first hit song was De Cigarro em Cigarro recorded by Nora Ney in 1957. Bonfá was introduced to [[Antonio Carlos Jobim[[ and Vinicius de Moraes, the leading songwriting team behind the worldwide explosion of the great Bossa Nova in the late 1950s to 1970s, becoming a fever in the U.S. Bonfá collaborated with them and with other prominent Brazilian musicians and artists in productions of de Moraes' anthological play Orfeu da Conceição, which several years later gave origin to Marcel Camus' film Black Orpheus. Bonfá wrote some of the original music featured in the film, including the numbers Samba de Orfeu and his most famous composition, Manhã de Carnaval.
Bonfá became a highly visible ambassador of Brazilian music in the United States beginning with the famous November 1962 Bossa Nova concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. He worked with American musicians such as Quincy Jones, George Benson, Stan Getz, and Frank Sinatra, recording several albums while in U.S.
As a composer and performer, Bonfá was at heart an exponent of the bold, lyrical, lushly orchestrated, and emotionally charged samba-canção style that predated the arrival of João Gilberto's more refined and subdued bossa nova style. Bonfá's major legacy continues to be his compositions from the Black Orpheus soundtrack, most notably the instantly recognizable bossa nova classic Manhã de Carnaval. But Bonfá's discography also attests to his uniquely inventive mastery of Brazilian jazz guitar.
Works for Winds
- Black Orpheus ( arr. Polyyukhov)
- La Chanson d’Orphee (arr. Mueller) (2010)
- Samba (arr. David)
- Samba Orfeo (arr. David)
- Somebody That I Used to Know (arr. Lopez) (2012)
- Song and Samba (arr. Iwai) (1959/1998)
Resources
- Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music. "Bonfa, Luiz Floriano." Accessed 11 April 2022
- Luiz Bonfá. Wikipedia. Accessed 11 April 2022