Izaías do Bandolim

Choro contemporâneo (contemporary choro) is the modern evolution of Brazil’s foundational instrumental popular genre, choro. It preserves the genre’s rigorous counterpoint, virtuosic melodic lines, and buoyant dance-derived grooves, while expanding harmony, form, and instrumentation with ideas from jazz, MPB, and contemporary classical music. Typical ensembles still feature bandolim (mandolin), flute or clarinet, cavaquinho, 6- and 7‑string guitars, and pandeiro; but modern groups frequently add saxophones, piano, percussion set, and even chamber instruments. The result is a conversational, highly rhythmic music that balances tradition with exploratory reharmonization, metric play, and extended improvisation.

Bandolim is the Brazilian mandolin tradition, centered on the 8‑string, double‑coursed mandolin (tuned like the violin: G–D–A–E) and, in modern practice, the 10‑string bandolim popularized by virtuosi in the 2000s. The instrument sings the lead voice of choro and related salon‑born Brazilian forms—polcas, valsas, mazurkas, schottisches and maxixes—using an expressive tremolo, agile scales, and crisp syncopation. More than just an instrument, “bandolim” refers to a performance idiom: lyrical, ornamented melodies over a swing that is light yet driving, supported by cavaquinho, violão (6‑ and 7‑string guitars), and pandeiro. Its vocabulary blends European dance forms and harmony with Afro‑Brazilian rhythmic feel, producing an unmistakably carioca (Rio de Janeiro) lyricism that later traveled far beyond Rio into all of Brazil’s choro scenes.