The Internationalization of Brazilian Contemporary Music through the Festivals of Rio de Janeiro Danilo Ávila (UNESP – Universidade Estadual Paulista ‘Júlio de Mesquita Filho’)
[email protected] On 22 November 2019, Itamaraty, the official institution of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), released a project called «Brazil in Concert». It was formulated by a partnership between the MFA and a consortium of Brazilian orchestras composed by São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Minas Gerais Philharmonic and Goiás Philharmonic in an arrangement with the record label Naxos. This enterprise aims to record and edit more than a hundred symphonic pieces of the Brazilian repertoire and it has already nominated its composers: Carlos Gomes, Henrique Oswald, Alberto Nepomuceno, Villa-Lobos, Francisco Mignone, Lorenzo Fernandez, Camargo Guarnieri, Cláudio Santoro, José Siqueira, Guerra-Peixe, Edino Krieger and Almeida Prado. For the contemporary composers, from Guarnieri onwards, this action can be an indication of a canon in construction. Events like that, in which some institutional agents choose who are the national key composers to be known abroad, are also an opportunity to investigate the Brazilian dilemmas in the internationalization of contemporary classical music. The activity of certain composers and performers in international events (festivals, biennales, and conferences) or the importation of international experiences through these agents can elucidate how this «fundamental repertoires» are constructed. For this reason, this article intends to reconstruct some international historical landmarks of the Brazilian contemporary music and to expose the accumulation of institutional efforts that conducted this music abroad, as well as to oxygenate the national scene with the exposition of present relevant aesthetics.