How the project came to be...as told by Voltarol

Silvia Nicolatto

As followers of 'The Adventures of Voltarol are aware, I am a musician based in Cornwall, who has a passion for the music of Brazil and is a regular visitor to that country. On our last visit to Brazil in January 2010 my wife and I went to stay in Teresópolis, which is a city about 1½ hours drive up into the mountains from Rio de Janeiro. This is where my good friend Alberto’s mother lives: Alberto had organised the trip and had arranged for us to stay at her house. The residents of her particular area have access to their own country club, known as the Weekend Club,which has a bar and restaurant, a club room, a swimming pool, tennis courts etc which we had the free run of. Alberto – himself no mean bass player – knew that there would be several other musicians - particularly a fine pianist known as 'Dudu' - staying near the club and organised regular evening jam sessions which were a source of great pleasure to me as you can imagine. Alberto had provided me with a guitar and amplifier and I was armed – as always – with my little shakers in lieu of a full percussion kit.

One afternoon we were swimming in the pool and were the only people there as the sky was slightly overcast. The temperature was well into the eighties but that, by the standards of the average Brazilian is cold and so they were avoiding the pool. As we swam happily up and down I saw a woman come over to the pool and look suspiciously at the water. “Quente!” I called out – “hot”. She dipped her toe in and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Para Gringos” (for Gringos), I added. She laughed and jumped into the pool. As we swum we got into conversation. I revealed that I was an English musician with a love of Brazilian music and she revealed that she was a singer/songwriter, originally from the state of Minas Gerais, lately of Rio de Janeiro and currently resident in São Paulo, where she and her partner, a recording engineer and producer, had just moved to. Her name is Silvia Nicolatto and her partner is Rodrigo de Castro Lopes That evening they showed up together at the club and we played together for the first time. That was the basis of a friendship and musical rapport that has led to the fact that she will be performing several gigs in the West of England in September and October this year.

 Left to right: Alberto, Dudu, Pete (Voltarol), Silvia and Rodrigo

 We met up with Silvia and Rodrigo when we returned to São Paulo later that month and over lunch in a rather nice Arab restaurant we discussed the idea of a visit to this country. After our return to England I started looking into the possibilities. Silvia’s regular band consists of herself on guitar, with another guitarist, a percussionist and a bandolim player. We knew that it would be prohibitively expensive to bring the band over as well so started thinking laterally.  I could fill the percussion chair but who else would fit in? 

Pete, with Cajon

Silvia is from Minas Gerais and there have always been strong links between Cornwall and Minas because of mining. When I was in Minas myself a few years ago I saw much evidence of a Cornish presence and I have spotted evidence of Brazilian influence around Cornwall –particularly in the Redruth area. So then it came to me – a Cornish / Brazilian collaboration.

The best mandolin player I know is, without doubt, Neil Davy of the Cornish group, Dalla, who also plays bouzouki and fiddle. 

Neil Davey with bouzouki

Neil knows of my love of Brazilian music and of my fascination with the Minas / Cornwall connection. Indeed, for a while Dalla included one of my compositions in their set – a tune called ‘Morning in Minas’ that had been inspired by my time in that state. I put the idea to him and he jumped at it. There was only one candidate for the guitar chair and that was Pete Kubryk Townsend, who is internationally known as a double bass player but who is also an extremely fine 7 string guitar player.

Pete Kubryk Townsend with 7 string guitar

Both Neil and I had worked with Pete on a regular basis and we share a huge respect for his musicianship. In addition, Pete K. was almost as obsessed with Brazilian music as me. I put the proposition to Silvia and she was delighted. She then proposed that we try to take this collaboration further by writing some material together. Neil sent a few tunes in MP3 format by email and we sat back at this end to see what would happen. Three weeks later we received an email from Silvia with an MP3 attachment. She had taken Neil’s simple mandolin line and added her voice. Was this the sort of thing, did we think? (You can hear for yourself - see top of page.) We certainly thought it was! That was ‘Rio Logh’ – words by Silvia to a tune by Neil. Dalla fans may have recognised it as ‘The King Harry Ferry Furry’. 

So - now it's become a reality and Silvia arrives in Cornwall on the 19th of September. We play our first dates in Cornwall at The Mount Pleasant Ecological Park near Porthtowan on Saturday September 24th. For further details contact them via the link or on 01209 891500. The following night we are at Miss Peapod's Kitchen Cafe at Penryn (01326 374424). Then we'll be at The Exchange, Sturminster in Dorset (01258 475137) on Thursday 29th September.  We play another date in Dorset on Friday 14th October, when we're at the West Stafford Village Hall ( no details available yet). Then we return to Cornwall at Sterts Arts Centre at Upton Cross (phone 01579 362382) on Saturday October 15th.

For further information  see the following links:-

SILVIA NICOLATTO (A number of Silvia's recordings can be heard here)

NEIL DAVEY (Dalla)
PETE KUBRYK TOWNSEND
PETE TURNER (Voltarol)