In the second half of 2022 I was remiss in not updating this website as usual… So here’s a round of up some of the highlights.
It was another busy year for Alvorada. We played various gigs including at some of our favourite venues, including Pizza Express Live, Peggy’s Skylight in Nottingham and The Harrison. In June we had the pleasure of inviting Alessandro Penezzi – an amazing seven string guitarist virtuoso who I first met in Brazil in 2014 – to join us as our special guest at The Harrison. We ran a fun series of ‘Baile do Alvorada’ gigs, creating a more lively ‘gafieira’ vibe and featuring guests including Aleh Ferreira, Rogerio Botter Maio, Heidi Vogel, Inês Loubet and Carolina Lelis. We finished the year by going into the studio to record our second album – a whole collection of Alvorada originals that we’re very excited to have put together.
London Vocal Project continued our residency at Pizza Express Jazz Club with five gigs across the year showcasing our amazing variety of projects. These included our James Taylor Songbook Project, previously unheard music by Kenny Wheeler, arrangements of music by our contemporary singer songwriter friends, as well as lots of our classic groove repertoire, and our end of year festive show with our own unique takes on Christmas songs old and new. We also finished a rather special recording project, not officially announced just yet….
Showstopper: The Improvised Musical got back to its usual ways, including the returning to Edinburgh for the first Fringe Festival to take place since 2019. The show continued its West End residency at the Lyric Theatre, and I also had the pleasure of playing for the first time with the Showstopper Kids show – an absolute delight in which children from the audience come up with ideas for the whole show.
Other highlights of the year included Afrik Bawantu at Secret Garden Party, where after playing our own set we joined forces with the Dele Sosimi and his band for an extended late night Afrobeat jam; lots of joyful rodas de choro at The Harrison; and gigs with the excellent band Sambossa, playing a great range of classic Brazilian samba and MPB.
ANDREW WOOLF 