Special Topics 2026
In 2026 the Special Topic classes will be organized in conjunction with our inaugural Vocal track. Choro Campers who focus on singing will work on songs drawn from three genres: Choro Cantado, Samba and/or Forró. Instrumentalists are invited to choose among these genres as well. In the first part of each Special Topics class period, instrumental groups and vocalists will work separately, learning their parts, and then bring those parts together for the remainder of the time.
While we don’t have camper “performances” per se at Choro Camp, we do have parties! This year our Special Topics classes are preparing us for two such festas:
- On Friday night, we’ll have a Samba / Forró party at which we’ll play and sing all the songs that we’ve been working on from those two traditions.
- On Saturday after lunch we’ll have our now-traditional bandão — a “big band” — in which we all play together. In addition to the purely instrumental choros we’ve been working on throughout the week, we’ll play three “choros cantados” featuring singers.
Here’s a closer look at the repertoire and instrumental opportunities offered in the Special Topics classes.
Choro Cantado
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For those who would like to keep their focus on choro, we invite you to learn three more tunes, shown below. We’ll work on one a day, Wednesday through Friday. These choros work equally well for both instrumentalists and singers.
Samba
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In the samba class you’ll have a variety of options for participation:
- Guitarists and cavaquinho players may want to work in their instrumental groups to explore the role of those instruments in a roda de samba on the repertoire we’ve chosen.
- Just as choro is not only for instrumentalists, samba is not only for singers! We will have written out the melodies to these tunes for players of melodic instruments.
- Fascinated by the intricate and enlivening rhythms of samba? Explore that, hands on, with the percussion section.
- Most of the sambas we have chosen have a part for a lead singer and another that invites participation by o coro, the chorus. We are all invited to join in the singing.
Here’s the Samba repertoire we have selected for this year:
- Esta melodia
- Meu drama
- Quantas lágrimas
- Você me abandonou
- Sentimentos
- Tenha pena de mim
- A primeira vez
Forró
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The forró componant of Choro Camp has developed quite organically. Our first year, Choro Das Trés opted to devote their Special Topic classes to forró and received enthusiastic reviews from all, including many who had never heard of forró previously. Every year since then our teachers have generously offered a forró dance party one night during camp.
This year we’ll move from incidental to intentional inclusion of forró in our instructional program. This will give Choro Campers an opportunity to distinguish between different rhythms used in the genre, to try their hands at triangulo or zabumba, to learn forró melodies or accompaniment on whatever instrument they play and, of course, to sing some forró standards. Here’s the repertoire we’ve selected for this year:
