(2026) LERO-LERO

LERO LERO (Commissioned by Tommy Mesa)
For Violoncello and Piano

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.