Márcio Faraco & Laurent de Oliveira

Márcio Faraco is a Brazilian musician, composer, singer and guitarist, born in Alegrete, southern Brazil, on 13 April 1963. His relationship with music began at an early age: he took up the guitar at ten and began composing at seventeen. Throughout his childhood and youth, he lived in several Brazilian cities, including Porto Alegre, Recife, Brasília, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro—experiences that helped shape his artistic sensibility and musical outlook.

After settling in Europe in 1992, Faraco found the creative freedom to develop his own distinctive musical language, away from commercial conventions and rooted in an elegant, poetic and contemporary vision of Brazilian popular music. He gained international recognition with Ciranda, his first solo album, released in France in 2000 by Universal Music Jazz. Featuring a collaboration with Chico Buarque and arrangements by Wagner Tiso, the album sold more than 60,000 copies and received widespread critical acclaim.

Since then, Márcio Faraco has established himself as one of the most distinctive voices in Brazilian popular music. His music moves effortlessly between samba, bossa nova and jazz, while retaining the intimacy, refinement and gentle melancholy that characterise his song writing. He has appeared at major international festivals, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, Nice Jazz Festival and San Francisco Jazz Festival, and performed at renowned venues such as the Olympia and La Cigale in Paris and the Blue Note in New York.

With an extensive discography and collaborations with artists including Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, Nana Caymmi and Kenny Barron, Márcio Faraco has become an acclaimed figure on the contemporary Brazilian music scene.

Laurent de Oliveira, pianist, composer and arranger, began his musical training with classical pianist Wally Karveno.

From an early age, he was immersed in Brazilian music through his father, Coaty de Oliveira, a drummer who performed with artists including Baden Powell, Claude Nougaro and Nazaré Pereira. He regularly watched his father perform, both on major Parisian stages and in more intimate clubs.

Among these was Le Discophage, where he was able to experience the Brazilian music scene at first hand and meet outstanding artists including Les Étoiles, Ricardo Vilas and Téca Calazans.

Throughout his career, he has accompanied a wide range of Brazilian and international artists, including Marcelo Ferreira, Catia Werneck, Filó Machado, Raul Mascarenhas, Ricardo Vilas, Raul de Souza, Tara Mehrad, Clémentine, Chloé Deyme, Cacau de Queiroz, Manu Le Prince, Claudia Marss and Simone Prattico. He has also contributed as a musician to around twenty recordings.

These encounters provided Laurent de Oliveira with an invaluable musical education, allowing him to learn from the artists with whom he worked—not only developing his skills as an accompanist, but also gaining experience in the recording studio and a deeper understanding of ensemble playing: listening to fellow musicians and appreciating the particular role and musical function of each member of a group.

His experience also led him to develop his skills in arranging, orchestration, computer-assisted music, recording, mixing, score preparation and composition.

As the role of the professional musician has evolved to encompass an increasingly diverse range of disciplines, Laurent de Oliveira has continued to broaden both his artistic practice and his professional expertise.

Alongside his career as a performer, composer and arranger, he has taught jazz piano and directed ensemble workshops at three renowned music schools in Paris: CIM, ARPEJ and the Bill Evans Piano Academy.