- Instrumentation
- Cello and piano
- Duration
- 5 min
- Year
- 2026
- Browse
- Chamber music
LERO-LERO
$40.00
LERO LERO (Commissioned by Tommy Mesa)
For Violoncello and Piano (5 minutes)
Music, for me, has always been a conversation. Long before I could read a note, I sat beside my father, guitarist and composer Sérgio Assad, and learned the most essential language of my life: improvisation. Those sessions, playful and searching, became the foundation of everything. They were also, ultimately, the reason I made my way to the United States. I followed my father to this country, which he had chosen as home after meeting the love of his life. Basically, I followed the dream of music, and this place magically made it work for me.
Program notes
LERO LERO (Commissioned by Tommy Mesa)
For Violoncello and Piano (5 minutes)
Music, for me, has always been a conversation. Long before I could read a note, I sat beside my father, guitarist and composer Sérgio Assad, and learned the most essential language of my life: improvisation. Those sessions, playful and searching, became the foundation of everything. They were also, ultimately, the reason I made my way to the United States. I followed my father to this country, which he had chosen as home after meeting the love of his life. Basically, I followed the dream of music, and this place magically made it work for me.
The piece lives in an inherited impulse to play freely, to speak without a script; and born from a recorded improvisation that I later transcribed. It was a spontaneous moment that, upon hearing, made sense for it to be preserved. LERO LERO, the phrase itself is a kind of Brazilian incantation. It can mean speech, small talk, or chit-chat. It holds the idea of a samba’s pulse, the sparkly vibe of improvised dialogue, and the story of a daughter who followed music, and her father, across an ocean to pursue what most people believed was an impossible dream.
