Introduction

Lauro Valério - AAB President.

I was very excited to receive an invitation to Brazil from Lauro Valério (pictuure left), Presidente da Associação dos Acordeonistas do Brasil (www.acordeon.com.br) through Italian artist Mirco Patarini (picture right) to come to City and attend the 1st Concurso Internacional de Acordeonistas (1st International Accordion Competition).

Until booking the flight, I never realised that Brazil was so far south of Washington DC and just how large South America is. After the 2007 Coupe Mondiale in Washington DC, Mirco Patarini and I flew to Miami (1,476 km) and then a further 6,512 km overnight to São Paulo arriving at 7:30 am the next morning, 21 August.

I
Mirco Patarini - CIA member.

From the air, the first view of Sao Paulo was of a huge city, quite a bit of fog/smog and tall buildings which seemed to stretch forever across the horizon. We were met at the São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport by Lauro Valério snr and Lauro jnr (21 years) who then took us on a tour through São Paulo to our hotel.

With a population of about 18 million, São Paulo is one of the biggest cities in the world, with streets constantly full of people and cars with an enormous amount of buildings under construction. A hugely vibrant city clearly going 24 hours a day.

Paolo Gandolfi

Lauro Valério Jnr took us to lunch to the "Anhembi Churrascaria Restaurant", which is known for the Brazilian traditional meat selections. We started off lunch with a traditional Brazilian drink named Caipirina that has a taste reminding me a little of tequila and enough alcoholic punch to lift your head a few cm, each time you took a most enjoyable sip. The meal featured a marvellous array of salads and pastas and the Brazilian tradition of Churrasco where they bring around many different meats to your table to select from. What a feast.

We waited for Maestro Paolo Gandolfi (picture left) to arrive from Italy later that day, and due to delays, it was 10:30 pm when we set off for City, about 120,000 people, some 270 km away, where the event is being held. The roads to City were new and in good condition and at that time of night, the traffic relatively light. After stopping for a light dinner on the way and going through some heavy fog over the mountains, we arrived at our hotel in about 3am.

Wednesday, 22 August 2007

Valério logo.

Accordion events in Brazil are normally non competitive festivals so the 1st International Accordion Compeition is quite a historic first. Some 48 entries were received and the numbers after listening to the audition tapes required from candidates, was trimmed to 26 contestants including 1 contestant from Chile, 1 contestant from Argentina and the balance from different states of the Brazil confederation.