Emiliano Gonzalez Toro/Thomas Enhco Perform Works By Violeta Parra On Violeta Y El Jazz

On May 20, tenor Emiliano Gonzalez Toro and pianist Thomas Enhco release Violeta y el Jazz, an album dedicated to the works of Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, and folklorist Violeta Parra. The album marks the second release on Gonzalez Toro and his French Baroque ensemble I Gemelli's newly minted Gemelli Factory label. Violeta y el Jazz includes ten tracks in new arrangements for voice, piano, trumpet, bass, percussion, and cuatro, compiled as a tribute to the Chilean songstress 50 years after her death.

Violeta Parra was born in 1917, in the region of Chillán, in the South of Chile, into a poor family of ten children. She composed her first songs at the age of twelve and soon after, started perfor­ming in small venues with one of her sisters. In 1952, after taking advice from her brother (the renowned "anti­-poet" Nicanor Parra), she initiated a journey travelling around Chile with a tape recorder, capturing and compiling the nation's traditional and folk songs. This was how she contributed to the creative process of the national Chilean identity, transcribing over 3000 songs in a book entitled Cantos Folklóricos Chilenos (Chilean Folk Music).

"Violeta Parra is a legend," says Gonzalez Toro. "She roamed the country, looking for Chile's forgotten folk songs, becoming the relentless ambassador of an unpretentious popular culture. Self-taught, she learned how to sing, to write, to play the harp and the guitar. Her raw voice imprinted the history of song writing in Latin America and beyond: without Violeta, there would be no Joan Baez, no Bob Dylan! She invented and broadcasted what would then revolutionize po­pular music in the 60s: folk. Violeta's songs are of the utmost beauty: Volver a los 17, Según el favor del viento... and the international hymn that is Gracias a la Vida today. As the son of Chilean parents, I grew up with Violeta Parra's songs; I know them like the back of my hand, as many other Latin Americans of my generation do."

To commemorate 50 years since Parra's tragic death by suicide, Gonzalez Toro invited pianist Thomas Enhco and others to pay a tribute to her life in songs. Enhco, who had never heard the works of Parra before working on this project, writes, "I discovered a fascinating poetic work, texts so deep and uniquely rich that overwhelmed me... I tried to align the music to the same intensity and richness as that of the lyrics without betraying their essence by using reharmonization, building on form and rhythm, while leaving moments to improvisation, as well as an orchestra­tion that mixes jazz (piano, double bass, trumpet) with Latin American roots (percussions, cuatro, voice)." Violeta y el Jazz

Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (1917-1967)

1 Volver a los 17
2 Ecoute moi petit
3 Gracias a la Vida
4 Maldigo del alto cielo
5 La jardinera
6 Run Run se fue pa'l norte
7 Según el favor del viento
8 Une Chilienne à Paris
9 Porque los pobres no tienen
10 Gracias a la Vida

EMILIANO GONZALEZ TORO lead vocals & artistic direction
THOMAS ENHCO piano, violin, vocals & arrangements*
PALOMA PRADAL vocals
MATHILDE ETIENNE vocals
PANCHO GONZALEZ vocals
DAVID ENHCO trumpet, flugelhorn
JEREMY BRUYÈRE upright bass
EDWIN SANZ percussion
LEO RONDON cuatro & arrangements
IRENE TORO vocals, Spanish coach *All arrangements by Thomas Enhco but Ecoute moi petit, arranged by Leo Rondon

Swiss tenor Emiliano Gonzalez Toro is an acclaimed performer of baroque music, particularly in Monteverdi: L'Orfeo with Ottavio Dantone and Ryo Terakado; L'Incoronazione di Poppea with Alessandro de Marchi, Emmanuelle Haïm, Christophe Rousset and Ottavio Dantone; Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria with Emmanuelle Haïm, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Christophe Rousset, Atilio Cremonesi and Ryo Terakado; Vespro della beata Vergine with René Jacobs, Michel Corboz, Gabriel Garrido, Christina Pluhar and Raphaël Pichon. Let us also quote Cavalli: Elena in Aixen-Provence, Eliogabalo at the Paris Opera, or La Calisto at the Staatsoper in Munich. The other artistic line of Emiliano Gonzalez Toro is French baroque opera. Rameau occupies an important place: let us quote the title roles of Platée with Christophe Rousset and Dardanus with Raphaël Pichon; The Paladins with William Christie. Lully also with Roland, Alceste or Phaëton with Christophe Rousset, Sémélé de Marais with Hervé Niquet. He also sings Vivaldi (Farnace with Diego Fasolis, Giustino with Ottavio Dantone), or Händel - Messiah with Hervé Niquet and Rodrigo with Thibault Noally. In his important discography, one counts numerous discs with Les Talens lyriques, Il Giustino and Farnace by Vivaldi, the Short Masses and the Mass in B by Bach with Pygmalion; Monteverdi's Vespers with the Orlando Friborg Ensemble, Pygmalion and L'Arpeggiata. In 2016, Te recuerdo was released, an album tribute to the New Chilean song of the 1970s, recorded with his father, Pancho Gonzalez, with the great Rolando Villazon and Ophélie Gaillard.

Thomas Enhco, born in Paris, France in September 1988, is a French pianist and composer (jazz and classical music). He started playing the violin and the piano at the age of 3, gave his first concerts and wrote his first compositions at 6. At the age of 9, Didier Lockwood invited him to perform on stage with him at the jazz festivals of Antibes Juan-les-Pins, Vienne and Marciac. He studied jazz at CMDL and classical piano with the great master Gisèle Magnan. At 16, he entered the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP), from which he was expelled two years later. Since then, he has released 8 albums as a leader and has been playing an average of 100 concerts per year around the world, both in classical and jazz venues and festivals.

His first album Esquisse, written and recorded at the age of 15 with his trio (and featuring drums-legend Peter Erskine) came out in 2006, whereupon he became the Laureate of Fonds d'Action SACEM.

In 2008 Enhco was spotted by the great Japanese producer Itoh "88" Yasohachi, who asked him to record three albums (Someday My Prince Will Come, The Window and the Rain in Japan and Jack and John with Jack Dejohnette and John Patitucci at Avatar Studios in New York) and invited him for ten tours in Japan, in solo, duo and trio.

In 2012, Enhco moved to New York where he played in jazz clubs and collaborated with many artists. That same year he released his self-produced album Fireflies on Label Bleu (winner of Victoires du Jazz 2013).

In 2014 he signed with Universal Music and recorded his solo piano album Feathers for label Verve, which was nominated for Best Album at Victoires du Jazz 2015.

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