PUTNEY — Next Stage Arts Project, 15 Kimball Hill, will present Sofia Rei & JC Maillard on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $22 in advance, $25 day of show, available online at nextstagearts.org.
“A leading light of Latin Jazz” (Village Voice), Argentine singer and composer Sofia Rei ties together musical traditions from across Latin America with a masterful approach deeply versed in jazz.
She performs music from maverick composer John Zorn's expansive Masada song cycle in collaboration with Guadeloupe-born Middle Eastern lute virtuoso JC Maillard.
After the Buenos Aires native moved to Boston to immerse herself in jazz and improvised music at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Danilo Perez and Steve Lacy, Rei quickly developed a name for herself as an in-demand vocalist in jazz and Latin music.
She performed at Carnegie Hall with vocal superstar Bobby McFerrin, did dates in Europe with Maria Schneider's Jazz Orchestra, toured internationally with Zorn's Book of Angels project, and sang on young piano giant Geoffrey Keezer's Grammy-nominated album Aurea.
Her newest recording, Keter, is a project four years in the making, adapting pieces from Zorn's third and final book in his 92-composition Masada cycle of “new Jewish music,” The Book Beri'ah.
On the duo's latest release, Keter, the longtime collaborators offer a superbly intimate and introspective study of the acclaimed source material. With lyrics by Rei and arrangements by both musicians, the songs explore a variety of topics, from love and solitude to the ghost of Frida Kahlo and a childhood under dictatorship in Argentina.