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‘Infectiously joyful’ Brazilian music presented Wednesday night
Need a break from the heat? The fair will still be there after an hour or so of music Wednesday evening as the Greencastle Summer Music Festival takes us from last week’s visit to Vienna (Beethoven) and Paris (Chopin) to an evening in Rio de Janiero, with Brazilian “choro” music performed by the trio Toco Rio.
There’s no admission charge for the 7:30 p.m. concert in the air-conditioned sanctuary of Greencastle’s Gobin Church (at the corner of Locust and Seminary streets). The festival has been presenting informal Wednesday-evening concerts every summer since 2005 (with a pandemic-necessitated switch to virtual concerts in 2020).
Audiences elsewhere have said, “Toco Rio’s repertoire is so delightful, but watching you play together makes it even more so” and,“The joy you exude making your music is absolutely infectious!”
GSMF founding artistic director Eric Edberg says, “We celebrate friendship and community: Friends making and enjoying music with friends. We’ve suffered through the effects of so many of being infected by the coronavirus. Why not be infected instead by joy — and then spread that to others.”
Toco Rio plays Brazilian choro music, a bubbly and unique blend of African rhythm and European form, created in the early 20th century in Rio de Janeiro. Choro is widely considered to be the first style of metropolitan popular music to originate from Brazil and is a precursor to many other popular styles in the country, such as samba and bossa nova.
Toco Rio consists of the husband and wife duo of Jeff and Linda Binder, on guitar and bandolim, and Greencastle-based percussionist Ben Hogan on pandeiro. The three bonded over their shared love for the music in 2015. Members of Toco Rio have had the opportunity to study with Brazilian luminaries such as Hermeto Pasocal, Douglas Lora, Dudu Maia, and Leander Motta.
The GSMF concerts are made available through the generosity of individual donors, an endowment at and grant from the Putnam County Community Foundation, a grant from the Putnam County Convention and Visitors Bureau, in-kind donations from the Inn at DePauw, and the “radical hospitality” of Gobin Church and its pastor, Bryan Langdoc.
The GSMF continues Wednesday, Aug. 4 with Percussion Group DePauw.
This summer’s performances are being shown at 3 and 8 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays on Channel 3 in Greencastle and are available online at greencastlemusic.org.