ARRIGO BARNABÉ'S PROFILE | MUSIC IN THE MCB
Photo: Gal Oppido
Although Arrigo Barnabé’s birth certificate lists the city of Londrina (PR), Arrigo’s artistic figure was essential for the emergence of new avant-garde São Paulo music from the end of the 1970s.
Arrigo Barnabé appeared on the Brazilian music scene in 1979 when he won the TV Cultura University Festival with the song “Electronic Diversions”, in partnership with Regina Porto. In 1980, he released the independent album “Clara Crocodilo” – the initial mark of the São Paulo avant-garde – presenting a fusion between urban popular music and contemporary classical music, which influenced Brazilian music as a whole.
“Clara Crocodilo” has become a work that is worshiped and reinterpreted by various music and theater artists.
“Electronic diversions”, University Festival of TV Cultura
Clara Crocodile (1980)
In the following album, “Tubarões Voadores” from 1984, Arrigo created a conceptual work that united his music to a graphic novel included in the album itself. The work in partnership with illustrator Luiz Gê is still one of the most daring graphic works on a Brazilian music album.
Flying Sharks (1984)
In his foray into cinema, Arrigo Barnabé acted in several films, among them “O Olho Mágico do Amor” (1981), “Cidade Oculta” (1986, with soundtrack signed by Arrigo and Tetê Espindola), “Desmundo” (2003 ) and “Luz nas Trevas: A Volta do Bandido da Luz Vermelha” (2010). He starred in “Not everything is true” (1986), a film by filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla, which dates back to Orson Welles’ arrival in Brazil to film “It’s all true” in the 1940s.
“Hidden city”, by Arrigo Barnabé
Name required for cinematographic soundtracks, Arrigo made the soundtrack for “ED Mort” by Alain Fresnot (1997), “Alô” by Mara Mourão (1998), “Oriundi” by Ricardo Bravo (2000, starring actor Anthony Quinn) and the music for the play “Plaidoyer en faveur des larmes d’Heraclite” by Bruno Bayen, presented at the Teatro Nacional de Chaillot, in Paris (2003).
In 2004, he wrote the soundtrack for the documentary “Doutores da alegria” by Mara Mourão. The soundtrack was awarded at the FIESP Film Festival in 2006.
In 2010, Arrigo participated in the Music at MCB project, signing the curatorship alongside Guga Stroeter.
Among his latest works is the beautiful “Missa In memoriam Itamar Assumpção” (2006), a work in honor of the singer Itamar Assumpção, who died in 2003.
In recent years, Arrigo has released albums with live performances such as the album in partnership with Paulo Braga, “Ao Vivo em Porto” (2008), “De Nada a Mais a Algo Além – Ao Vivo No Sesc Vila Mariana” (2014) , in partnership with Luiz Tatit and Lívia Nestrovski) and “Claras e Crocodilos”, where he reinterprets the 1980 classic.
Recently, Arrigo composed “Missa Nóia” (2019), a work written especially for the OSESP Choir. It was the subject of the documentary “Ostinato”, directed by Paula Gaitán, and released in January 2021.
Mass In memoriam Itamar Assumpção
Claras e Crocodilos, instrumental Sesc Brasil
Forget Evil – Tetê Espíndola and Arrigo Barnabé
To follow Arrigo’s work, keep an eye on the conductor’s social networks:
Instagram | Facebook | SoundCloud | Spotify
About MCB
The Museum of the Brazilian House, an institution of the Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy of the State of São Paulo, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2020, is dedicated to the preservation and diffusion of the material culture of the Brazilian house, being the only museum in the country specializing in architecture and design. The MCB’s program includes temporary and long-term exhibitions, with an agenda that also includes educational service activities, debates, lectures and publications contextualizing the museum’s vocation for the formation of critical thinking on topics such as architecture, urbanism, housing, economics creativity, urban mobility and sustainability. Among its numerous initiatives, the Design MCB Award stands out, the main segment award in the country held since 1986; and the Casas do Brasil project, to rescue and preserve memory about the rich diversity of living in the country.
SITE: mcb.org.br/
Museu da Casa Brasileira_ Av. Faria Lima, 2705
Phone: (11) 3032-3727
