about me
I have a life-long experience in different Brazilian musical traditions as a saxophonist, guitarist, percussionist, pianist and singer, as well as composer, arranger, choir and orchester conductor, and music director for dramatic arts (theater and film). Before my academic studies, I had already dedicated many years in the search for my aesthetic signature when my bachelor in Composition added to it theoretical and critical lenses of investigation. As an undergraduate, I worked in many areas from music theater to orchestral composition, from neoclassic to soundscape, from film/game sountrack to choir music, from samba to research on music athropology. I had my master degree in musicology, at the UNESCO Chair on Transcultural Music Studies (anthropology of music, sociology of music, applied musicology). More recently, I have worked artistically and academically with Latin-American, African, and African-diasporic cultures.
My master thesis was an anthropological and sociological analyses of Music in the anti-racist and anti-colonialist struggle in Brazil. My ongoing doctoral research is a transdisciplinary investigation on music and spirituality in the Haitian Revolution as a possibly replicable model for the consummation of the African Revolution.
Curriculum Vitae
ARTISTIC WORK
2023 - today musician, music director - theater play Ayiti by Marconi Bispo
2022 Musician in the experimental theater piece The Gods Are Not To Blame by Bright Richards, New Dutch Connections (Utrecht, Netherlands)
2022 Culture Shock - Concert with the Yoruba master drummer Ayanlere Alamu Alajede (Utrecht, Netherlands)
2022 Duo Obará performance Agô! at the UdK Program by Okhiogbe Omonblanks Omonhimins, Archiving the Mo(ve)ment (Berlin, Germany)
2021 Guest on the weekly program Pensar Africanamente (Brazil)
2018 State commission - Coral da Vila concert series (Brasília, Brazil)
2018 Musician, music director - street theater Auto da Paixão e da Alegria (Brasília, Brazil)
2017 Music director - theater play Um Brinde a la Muerte (Brasília, Brazil)
2017 Musician and sound engineer in the short film Rito by Pedro Miranda (Brasília, Brazil)
2016 Co-founder and conductor of the community choir Coral da Vila as a social worker at a senior citizens' association (Brasília, Brazil)
2013 - 2017 Musician and music director of the Catarse theater group - Anel de Magalão, Gata Borralheira, Na Cova dos Leões
2013 Singer in Trio Cajarana - Genre: Forró (Brasília, Brazil)
2012 Saxophonist in Crash41 - Genre: Dave Matthews Band cover (Brazil)
2011 Saxophonist in Baixo Clero - Genre: Samba and Choro (Brasília, Brazil)
ACADEMIC WORK
2023 Lecture on Candomblé and Capoeira music at Decolonial Dialogues 1.0 (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
2022 Member of the ISME(International Society for Music Education)
2022 Duo Obará at the WebLab Affect and Colonialism: the Naturalization of Colonialism - Modernism and the Production of Cultural Identity (Berlin, Germany)
2022 Duo Obará at the panel Racialized Faces in Creative Spaces
(Berlin, Germany)
2021 Member of PASMAE(Pan-African Society for Musical Arts Education)
2021 Interviewed as Duo Obará by Gugulethu Duma and Jessica Korp for the Oyoun podcast series (Berlin, Germany)
2020 Master's thesis - Panafricanism and African Revolution in Brazilian Music (Weimar, Germany)
2017 State contract - scientific research on Bell playing as intangible cultural heritage in Goiás (Brazil)
2016 State contract - scientific research on improvised sung poetry (Brazil)
2015 State contract - scientific research, Identidades Sonoras: Soundscape archive as intangible cultural heritage (Brazil)
2015 PIBIC - Program for Introduction to Science - Specialized essay on counterpoint, honorable mention (Brazil)
2015 Tutor at the Choral Music and Choral Conducting course (Bachelor of Music) at the Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)
2014 Tutor at the lectures Counterpoint and Music Analysis (Bachelor of Music) at the Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)
2013 Tutor at the lectures Music History 1 and Music History 2 (Bachelor of Music) at the Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)
2012 Tutor at the 1st International Symposium for Musicology at the Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)
LECTURING / TEACHING
2024 Music teacher, arranger, conductor in Orin Agba - artistic-scientific project, HfM Franz Liszt Weimar (Germany)
2023 Third-party funded project Nossas Áfricas - Capoeira, Samba, and Acarajé for Portuguese speakers - Federal Agency for Civic Education (Berlin, Germany)
2022 Duo Obará as lecturers in the summer course of West Den Haag - Where We Are Right Now? (The Hague, Netherlands)
2021 Key Note on music in continental and diasporic Africa - Prof. Dr. Nina Graeff and Prof. Dr. Eurides Santos at the Universidade da Paraíba (Brazil)
2020 Coordinator and music teacher - externally funded project Music in Africa, academic assistant - UNESCO Chair for Transcultural Music Studies (Weimar, Germany)
2019 Research assistant - HfM Franz Liszt Weimar, e-learning initiatives (Germany)
2019 Guitar teacher at the adult education center Weimar (Germany)
2018 Music teacher and coordinator of the Weimar samba group from the Escola Popular (Germany)
ORGANIZER / PRODUCER
2022 - 2023 Academic Assistant - HfM Franz Liszt Weimar International Office - DAAD third-party funded project for the internationalization of German universities (Germany)
2022 Duo Obará organizes Open Talk "Ifá and the Humanity Crisis" with Oluwo Adelona Isola - Opening event of the Cultural Center AKilombeSe (Berlin, Germany)
2022 Weekly event Transcultural Music Sessions, Mascha Weimar (Germany)
2020 Co-founder of the Worldwide African Route (Berlin, Germany)
2019 - 2020 Monthly event Roda de Samba, OMA - Other Music Academy (Weimar, Germany)
2016 Co-founder and chairman of the non-profit organization ADMIM - Association for the Preservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage (Brazil)
2015 Weekly event Forró do Minas (Brasília, Brazil)
2014 Weekly event Samba & Choro (Brasília, Brazil)
2013 Weekly event Forró do Ferreira (Brasília, Brazil)
EDUCATION / TRAINING
2020 - today PhD - UNESCO Chair for Transcultural Music Studies, HfM Franz Liszt Weimar (Germany)
2018-2020 Master of Arts - UNESCO Chair for Transcultural Music Studies, HfM Franz Liszt Weimar (Germany)
2011-2017 Bachelor of Music (major: composition, minor: conducting) Universidade de Brasília (Brazil)
2013 Summer course at the Music Conservatory - Arranging, Composition (Brasília, Brazil)
2012 Summer course at the Music Conservatory - Saxophone, Harmony (Brasília, Brazil)
2009 High School INEI-Dínatos/COC-SEB (Brasília, Brazil)
2006 - 2011 Technical school: Escola de Choro Raphael Rabello (saxophone, music theory)
2001 First saxophone lessons
1998 First cavaquinho and guitar lessons
list of publications
(with peer review)
FREIRE, Kamai „A New Forró or Just a New Market?" Book “Forró as Social Practice”, University of Illinois, USA (in press)
FREIRE, Kamai. Bloco Afro Ilê Aiyê and the African Revolution. Book “Can I Sing My Song? African Perspective on Musical Arts Education”. Indiana University Press, 2022. (in press)
FREIRE, Kamai. On the Spiritual Warfare. Anthology CreativeLab 3.0 – Racialized Faces in White Creative Spaces. DisCheck, Kultur Bund. Berlin, 2022. https://tinyurl.com/racialized-faces
FREIRE, K. Arts and Sciences in african perspective: thoughts on the unfinished African Revolution. InterEspaço: Journal of Geography and Interdisciplinarity, v. 6, e202040, 2021. https://tinyurl.com/AfricanPerspective
NZEWI, Meki. Towards a “true African-Brazilian musicology”: interview with Meki Nzewi. By Kamai Freire and Nina Graeff. Revista Claves, v. 9, n. 14, 20201 https://bit.ly/3qHCsA9
NZEWI, Meki. Por uma musicologia “verdadeiramente” africana-brasileira: entrevista com Meki Nzewi. Por Kamai Freire e Nina Graeff. Revista Claves, v. 9, n. 14, 2021. https://bit.ly/3vnUZW7
FREIRE, Kamai. Universalism in the Sciences and in the Arts: thoughts on a Pierre Schaeffer's postulate. Infinitum: Multidisciplinar Journal, v. 3, n. 4, p. 97-114, 2020. https://bit.ly/3tnhWXF
FREIRE, Kamai. Intangible Cultural Heritage and Transatlantic Connections – Panafricanism and African Revolution in Brazilian Music. Weimar: UNESCO Chair on Transcultural Music Studies, HfM Franz Liszt, 2020. https://bit.ly/3cfarL6
FREIRE, Kamai & PEREIRA, Flávio Santos. Melodic treatment in improvised poetry singing: analyses of decasyllable melodies. Journal Music in Context 13, no. 2: 71-90. 2019. https://tinyurl.com/22um2bwh
FREIRE, Kamai & MENDES, Sérgio Nogueira. Comparative study of composition treaties from the first phase of Western polyphony. PIBIC-UnB, https://bit.ly/3liFhHb , vol. 2 Humanas, p. 447, 2015. (Honorable mention, p. 13) https://bit.ly/2PJnYD9
As far as I have been notified, 12 texts from other authors cite my work.
publications with no peer review:
Soundscape and Cultural Heritage Archive: Identidades Sonoras https://www.identidadessonoras.org
Cultural Heritage Archive: Identidades Sonoras - Repentistas do DF
https://repentistas.identidadessonoras.org
Cultural Heritage Archive: Identidades Sonoras – Sinos de Goiás
https://sinosgo.identidadessonoras.org (under construction)
research projects
Identidades Sonoras
Repentistas do DF
Sinos de Goiás
selected works
compositions
Feelings for Viola Solo
Divertimento #3 - Sati - Parodia
The Yoruba Creation
Contemplations
Carioquinha (Waldir Azevedo)
Saa Magni (Oumou Sangaré)