Alegre Corrêa & Gerald Preinfalk
Musicians with extremely different backgrounds, the Brazilian guitarist and the Austrian saxophonist show their musical affinities. Twins. Perhaps astrology can be the simplest explanation for the meeting between Alegre Corrêa and Geraldo Preinfalk, since the two musicians were born on June 9, a date ruled by the planet Mercury, presented in mythology as the god with wings on his feet.
Perhaps the most likely explanation is that they are governed by music without borders. This argument gains weight when one notices that both are endowed with a musical sense that seeks to understand and associate themselves with a wide range of genres, bossas and influences.
.
Alegre Corrêa was born in Passo Fundo, in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul. Gerald Preinfalk is from Zulissen, in the region called Upper Austria, in the north of the European country. The Brazilian began his career in the early seventies, playing in dance groups, student festivals and nightclubs. In the following decade, he dedicated himself to work with his own themes and entirely focused on modern instrumental music. The Austrian, in turn, began his career at the age of nine and dedicated himself to studies, in the area of jazz and classical saxophone, at the University of Music in Vienna and later at the Berklee College of Music, in Boston.
With a career spanning 48 years, having lived in Vienna for more than two decades, Alegre Corrêa has traveled the continents showing his work as an instrumentalist and composer, sometimes as a band leader, sometimes as a member of several groups and orchestras. Among them, the Vienna Art Orquestra and The Zawinul Syndicate, a band that accompanied the great Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul and which, in 2009, won the Grammy for best contemporary jazz album with the posthumous album 75th, recorded in Lugano, Switzerland.
Favored by the 'astral' conjunctions, but especially the musical ones, it became natural for both to meet and that the duo project emerged from this meeting. In the repertoire, Alegre and Gerald parade songs like Corcovado, Tema Novo, Erdberg, Cunhataí, Bachião, all composed by Alegre Corrêa, except Maria, a partnership between Alegre and Gerald Preinfalk.