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Paul Winter Brings Sounds Of Brazil To Westport To Benefit Bridgeport Kids

If you didn’t make it to Rio for Carnival this year, you can still catch the beat of Brazil with Grammy-winning saxophonist and band leader Paul Winter and his My Brazil quartet when they play in Westport at Voices Café on Saturday, May 12 at 8 p.m.

Paul Winter brings the beat of Brazil to Voices Cafe to benefit Bridgeport's KEYS program.

Paul Winter brings the beat of Brazil to Voices Cafe to benefit Bridgeport's KEYS program.

Photo Credit: Jeff Day
KEYS, founded in 2004, brings one-on-one and group music lessons to over 600 Bridgeport children a year.

KEYS, founded in 2004, brings one-on-one and group music lessons to over 600 Bridgeport children a year.

Photo Credit: KEYS

The concert is to benefit the Kids Empowered by Your Support (KEYS) program which gives one-on-one musical instrument lessons and group music instruction to underserved inner-city youth in Bridgeport, Conn. Without this group, the children would have no access to this empowering life experience.

KEYS began in 2004 when musician and music educator, Rob Silvan, volunteered to teach piano to four students in a hallway at Bridgeport’s Columbus School. KEYS now operates in 22 Bridgeport schools and provides music education to over 600 children every year.

Winter, who has a honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Hartford, has shared stages and worked with the likes of Miles Davis, Mickey Hart, the Dave Brubeck Quartet and Pete Seeger, among others, but calls Brazil his second musical home.

He fell in love with country’s music during a six-month tour in 1962 – just as the Bossa Nova was starting to take off. Some thirty years later, Winter would revisit this golden era of Bossa Nova songs with an award-winning album, Brazilian Days, by his group the Paul Winter Consort. (Listen to it here.)

For this performance, Winter is collaborating with three “masterful players of the Brazilian traditions”: percussionist Vanderlei Pereira, bassist Gustavo Amarante and Paul Meyers on guitar.

“It’s a privilege for us to have the opportunity to create a new program for this performance in a special performance space,” Winter said.

Voices Café is located at The Unitarian Church in Westport, 10 Lyons Plains Road. Tickets are $35 in advance ($40 walk-up) and are available for purchase online at voicescafe.org or by calling David Vita at (203) 227-7205 x14.

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