Day 3 Mouthful in Brazil

It's very hard to know where to start to begin to explain what an inspiring day we've had! We traveled in to meet our friends at Guri Santa Marcelina, and Giuliana Frozoni's overview of the work that Guri does is astonishing. Social pedagogy is the beating heart of the organisation, and it's clear that in the hands of people like Giuliana and her colleagues, music is a powerful means of transforming people's lives, right across the vast population of São Paulo.

After lunch, we worked with Guri's youth choir and were completely blown away by their commitment, musicality and enthusiasm. Within minutes of meeting them, we had the strongest sense of what a fabulous concert it's going to be on Saturday. They are literally amazing! Nara and Jugo, the choir's leaders, have worked on the repertoire we'd sent themin advance in lots of detail already, and they are already transforming it. It was a complete joy for Dave to have the choir sing their arrangement of his song Stone Acoustic back to him - the original is a meditative piece, and the choir have transformed it into a wonderful groove-based number with Portuguese lyrics and body percussion! We're going to mash the two together. The choir are devouring the repertoire at such a rate - and at such high quality - that we're already getting excited about what the weekend concerts are going to be like.

To top off the day, we spent the evening with Giuliana's wonderful adult choir at her house, being inspired by their carefully-crafted harmonies, Brazilian rhythms, and the sheer joy of their singing. A real privilege for us to be able to be a part of such an inspiring group of singers, and they made the most fantastic version of Sharon's Chinese Proverb with us. Watch out for a video a of it...

Somehow, we managed to find the time between all of that to record another singing postcard, this time of the Bonnie 'Price' Billy sing that Katherine brought to the group. Still making use of the lovely acoustic in the swimming pool, this one was recorded outside the sauna...

Tomorrow we're off to Osasco for a concert and workshop with young people in one of Guri's 'polos', the many music centres they run all over the municipality. We're bracing ourselves for more inspiration, especially as we get to work with the youth choir again in the afternoon, and then we're running a workshop for Guri's teachers in the evening. Never a dull moment! And each one of those moments a treasure.