Grammy-nominated performer, composer, and educator of musical depth and ability

The term “world music” is redundant when applied to her style, a reflection of Brazil’s musical melting pot heritage of African rhythms mixed with European melodies and harmonies. 

Brazilian-American Clarice Assad is a Grammy-nominated composer, performer, and educator of musical depth and versatility.  Her music has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo, General Electric, Sybarite5, Cedille Records, the Vail Music Festival and the La Jolla Music Festival, to name a few. Her works have been recorded by some of the most prominent names in the classical contemporary music scene today, including Dame Evelyn Glennie, Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Liang Wang.

Assad has served as a composer-in-residence for the Albany Symphony, the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the New Century Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra.  She is the recipient of such awards as the Aaron Copland Award, several ASCAP awards in composition, New Music USA, the Van Lier Fellowship, League of American Orchestras, NPR’s All Songs Considered, the Mcknight Visiting Composer Fellowship and The American Composers Forum’s National Composition Competition. Assad’s music is represented on Cedille Records, SONY Masterworks, Nonsuch, Adventure Music, Edge, Telarc, NSS Music, GHA, and CHANDOS labels.

As a performer, Clarice has shared the stage with Bobby McFerrin, Anat Cohen, Nadia Sirota, Paquito D’Rivera, Tom Harrell, Marilyn Mazur and Mike Marshall, among other outstanding musicians. She has performed at venues and festivals including Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Caramoor International Jazz Festival, Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Concertgebow, Le Casino de Paris and Le Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

Hailed by the LA Times as “a dazzling soloist,” Clarice sings in Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and English, but thrives in exploring the voice as an instrument, creating a vast range of innovative textures and vocabulary of extended techniques into her music. Such interest in the human voice, combined with her passion for orchestral music led to the creation of the world’s first scat singing concerto, which she performs frequently with orchestras around the world.

A passionate educator, Clarice is the founder of VOXploration – a creative workshop exploring the body and the voice as musical instruments that combine improvisation, songwriting, and compositional elements. VOX has received grants and awards from Brazilian foundations such as CAIXA CULTURAL and SESC. She has also taught the workshop extensively in the United States, Qatar, Poland, Denmark, and Italy. Assad is currently developing an educational program featuring the workshop on the south side of Chicago, in collaboration with the Old Town School of Folk Music.

She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Roosevelt University and a Master of Music degree from The University of Michigan School of Music, where she studied with Michael Daugherty, Susan Botti and Evan Chambers.  Her works are published in France (Editions Lemoine), Germany (Trekel), Criadores do Brasil (Brazil) and by Virtual Artists Collective Publishing, (VACP) a publishing company co-founded with poet and philosopher Steve Schroeder.

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"A fine fresh singer and pianist who is also a first-rate story-teller."

Jazz Times

"quite simply a phenomenon who has streaked across the world's musical landscape like one of those rare comets that appears just once in a lifetime."

Jazz Latin Network

"A Serious Triple Threat"

San Francisco Chronicle

EVENTS

JULY 2018

Abertura do Festival Assad

Theatro Municipalde Sao Joao da Boa VIista

July 25 

http://festivalassad.com.br/programa

AUGUST 2018

Orquestra de Câmara Solistas de Londrina convida Clarice AssadAugust 8 Em seu primeiro segundo comemorativo, a Orquestra convida a compositora, arranjadora, cantora e pianista Clarice Assad! Musicista, que tem grande destaque no cenário internacional, se apresentará como solista. No programa, obras autorais e de George Gershwin, arranjados pela compositora.

SEPTEMBER 2018

Clarice Assad & Grupo interpretam Milton Nascimento

September 20 - September 23

Caixa Cultural Fortaleza

OCTOBER 2018

5th Wave Collective

October 1

DePaul Art Museum, Chicago

5th WAVE COLLECTIVE: Bringing music by women to the world. PRESENTING MODERN CONNECTIONS on the occasion of DePaul Art Museum's current exhibition 'Out of Easy Reach'  

Recording Project with the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet in Manchester, UK

October 4 - October 5 

The Aquarelle Guitar Quartet teams up with composer Clarice Assad for a one-of-a-kind collaboration, celebrating the groups' 20th year anniversary. Follow Clarice on Instagram to be a part of this exciting journey !

SIN FRONTERAS (ballet) Cerqua-Rivera at Studio5 in Evaston

October 5 

Following an extremely successful season featuring Assad's Sin Fronteras in 2017, the dance company Cerqua-Rivera is touring the piece again this year, with their live jazz piece ensemble. "not quite like anything else that we can think of...an astonishing group of superb dance artists ... a fearlessly imaginative musical ensemble" - dancermusic.com ​ "fun, sexy, & technically on point" - Chicago Tribune ​ "an invigorating mix of music and movement"

- The Reader

Sin Fronteras (ballet) Cerqua Rivera @ Constellation Chicago

October 5 - October 6

SIN FRONTERAS (ballet) Cerqua-Rivera at Studio5 in Evaston

October 6

Ole Theill & Halvcirkel String Quartet Recording Project (DK)

October 8 - October 9

MillFactory NuVenue | Audio recording studio with video capability, Rentemestervej 25, 2400 Copenhagen, Denmark

Super excited to collaborate again with composer and tabla player Ole Theill and the Halvcirkel String Quartet, following my Jazz Danmark residency in 2017 where we got started on these great transcriptions and arrangements of this music. Recording will be streamed live.
Find out more »Voxploration Workshop & Masterclass at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels

October 11 - October 12

Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium

For two days Clarice Assad will be working with students from the Jazz department at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels on spontaneous music creation, singing improvisation among other topics. For information re. Ms Assad's teaching and workshops, please visit this link.
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