Motian in Motion celebrates the ECM artist as he drums his way through the Village Vanguard, Birdland, the Blue Note, and beyond. Halfway through Motian in Motion, a […]
In Conversation: Brazilian Pianist Amaro Freitas Talks Prepared Piano, Amazonia and His New Album Y’Y’

To truly appreciate our conversation below with the brilliant Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas, you should get a sense of the artist’s approach to his instrument. The video at the end of this paragraph documents his performance of a song, “Dança dos Martelos,” from his just-released prepared piano album, Y’Y, which came out in the US via Psychic Hotline. It’s his fourth album overall, and first without the trio that supported him on his other records. (Maybe just leave the video playing as you read the interview.)
“In Amazonia, I felt like a different person. I saw the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Solimoẽs River… once I visited, I knew I wanted to reflect on that and play about that.”
Freitas’s third album, Sankofa, set a lot of brains ablaze when it was released in 2021. Backed by his trio, the pianist attacked his instrument with a singular vigor, drumming on keys like Cecil Taylor and maneuvering his hands with Glenn Gould speed. It was thematically devoted to Brazilian musicians of the past.
For Y’Y, Freitas used as his thematic springboard the confluence that creates the Amazon River in western Brazil, and the indigenous Sateré-Mawé people of the region. After performing a concert in the area, he fell in love with it, which is about 2,500 west of his birthplace in the coastal city of Recife. The environment inspired the pianist to experience, as he explained in release notes, “a new realm of musical creation, one rooted in magic and possibility and tempered by a sense of stewardship for the earth’s bounties…”
Freitas recorded some of Y’Y in Milan, Italy and others at his Recife studio. Flutist-saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming), drummer Hamid Drake (Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock), and bassist Aniel Someillan joined Freitas in Milan; hotshot harpist Brandee Younger (Makaya McCraven, Meshell Ndegeocello) collaborated with Freitas remotely (from a Los Angeles hotel room), as did guitarist Jeff Parker (from Chicago).
Recently, Freitas took time to hop on Zoom for an interview with In Sheep’s Clothing. He was talking from his place in Recife. Because English is a second language for the Portuguese-speaking pianist, he was joined by a translator just in case. Aside from a few instances when the translator pitched in, though, Freitas’ English was pretty good. The interview below was edited for clarity and length.
Randall Roberts: Tell me about the seeds of your new album, Y’Y.
Amaro Freitas: This is a new project and different than my three albums before, Sangue Negro, Rasif, and Sankofa. Those were with my trio, but this project is solo; I play piano and have some collaborators. But this project is very special because three years ago I put my hands inside the piano for the first time. I grabbed a string and thought, oh, the sound is really good.
I started to find references to pianists who played by putting their hands into the piano, like John Cage and Eric Satie, and when I saw this type of music I looked at it and thought, “This is the road for me now. I’d like to learn about prepared piano.” In my process — I always studied piano in a studio, in my hometown, and I like very much to study the piano — I took some objects to the studio, and I began to put them into the piano, dominoes, tape, clothes and things from Amazonia.
But John Cage and Eric Satie lived in different countries. In Brazil we have a hot climate. It’s a tropical country. I wanted to mix in prepared piano and the tropical heat of Brazil. When you listen to John Cage’s prepared piano, you don’t have any swing there. It doesn’t swing. The music from Brazil has a lot of swing. I wanted to put swing into the sound of the prepared piano. I wanted to add samba and maracatu, but use prepared piano and polyrhythms. They’re all very rhythmic, and I wanted to learn about different ways to do rhythmics. If you listen to “Dança dos Martelos,” there is a prepared piano and tropical rhythms. Everything is very fast.
You also bang on the piano on "Dança dos Martelos.” That moment was jarring the first time I heard it.
Yes, yes, I pound the keys very strong. It’s very powerful. In my life, I’m a relaxed man. But when I play piano, I become a monster [laughs]. I think sometimes when I play piano, I’m another person. In my life, I speak relaxed, and I have relaxed conversations. When I play piano, I’m not a person, I’m an entity. At the same time, I can study about prepared piano, and use different ideas, for example, John Cage, because John Cage uses nuts and screws and metal things, I didn’t want to use metal. I wanted to use things with Brazilian references, like seeds from Amazonia, and use clothing clips and an eBow.
At the same time I was studying about prepared piano, I was in Amazonia for the first time, and Amazonia is another Brazil. It’s totally different. For example, in Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and São Paulo, there is a mix of people — there are Black people and white people and brown people. In Amazonia, there are more indigenous people and indigenous communities. People they have another relation with nature and the river in the forest, and the balance of our planet. For me, that time was special because music is my emotion. All the time in my music, I’m expressing my emotion.
In Amazonia, I felt like a different person. I saw the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Solimoẽs River. These waters, where they meet in the course of the rivers, they do not mix up. They flow together, but never mix. The brown water of the Solimoẽs River and the black water of the Rio Negro. This is a phenomenon that happens in the Amazon and it is one of the most important of the region. Everyone visits there, and once I visited, I knew I wanted to reflect on that and play about that.
Were you there to play a concert?
I played in a beautiful theater in Amazonia, and I visited for the first time the Sateré-Mawé indigenous community. I was shocked by the food. I ate great food — different fish, big fish, and then, when I came back to my hometown, I said, “I need to go back to Amazonia. I need to have more time there,” and I began to do a mix of prepared piano when I came back to my house.
Did you have someone who knew the area?
Yes I exchanged ideas with him about the nature in Amazonia, and said that I would like to have some conversations with Sateré-Mawé members, and he introduced me to a Sateré-Mawé teacher at an Amazonian university. I return to the area and I visited the community. I ate crocodile, ants, and guarina, the fruit itself. We talked about the planet with the community, about the river, and the balance of the planet and how, for the Sateré-Mawé, it is very important to have a connection with nature. I think about it, and in this moment when we live on this planet, we need to pay attention more to our planet. The river and the forest are important, the water in the ocean and in the river, the balance of the planet in our life.
How did your collaborations work? Were you in the studio with Shabaka Hutchings, Hamid Drake or the others? Was it a band situation?
We had different situations. I met Shabaka in Europe, and I met Hamid Drake in Europe. Hamid, Shabaka and Antonio recorded with me in Milan, Italy — in the first take. I explained some ideas I had about the song, but the first take we played together is the take you hear on the record. But Brandee was in Los Angeles and Jeff Parker was in Chicago. I recorded here (in Recife) and explained my idea to them. With Brandee, my melody is very simple [hums his piano melody] and I wanted her to [makes strumming sound], because when I saw Brandee perform for the first time, she floated. I wanted that energy in the song. When I listened what she sent, I was like, “Oh my!” Brandee recorded it in a hotel room, because she was on tour.
Tell me about your concerts these days. Are you as well known in Europe as you are in Brazil?
After March 5, I have 14 concerts in Europe, and then 14 concerts in Brazil in March and April. I have recognition and am as well known in Brazil as I am in Europe — the same thing. But it is kind of strange because I seem to be playing more often in Europe than in Brazil. In the gigs I play around Brazil, my music is very well embraced and accepted. People call to me and people buy my music, everything. But the audience at my performances in Europe seem to be bigger than the audience in Brazil. They embrace the same heat, the same approach, as in Europe, but the audience seems to be bigger.