projeto vadico

In 2021, musician Franco Galvão discovered around 400 pages of unpublished scores by composer Vadico in the ballerina Katherine Dunham’s collection, stored by the Southern University of Illinois, in the United States of America.

Vadico was Noel Rosa’s main partner and together they composed Conversa de Botequim, Feitiço da Vila, Feitio de Oração, among others. Dulled out by Noel’s grandeur, Vadico never received the due attention.

However, it was already known that there were songs by Vadico that were lost. In 1956, Vinicius de Moraes wrote about these lost Choros and Fuga e Prelúdio, compositions that Vadico would have conducted the Santiago Symphony Orchestra, but no one had ever heard of this material.

The research kicked off when researcher Itamar Dantas found an album by Katherine Dunham with three unknown songs by Vadico and encouraged Franco Galvão to advance in the search.

After a few months, the musician spoke by phone with Katherine Dunham’s daughter, Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt, who instructed him on where to find the musical material produced by her mother’s dance company. Vadico was Katherine’s musical director for 3 years and therefore there was a good chance there was something of him in the ballerina’s archive.

Suspicions were confirmed with the discovery of incredible musical material! The content is made of various styles, both popular and concert music, arranged for large and medium-sized groups, such as symphony orchestra and big band.

After the virtual collection of the scores, the musician presented to “Selo Sesc” a project for recording the unpublished work and re-recording of rare compositions by Vadico. The proposal was approved “with praise” by the curatorship.

Now the project is being carried out, with launch scheduled for 2025. At this moment, two recoding section have been done. The first one were recorded jazz formation with invited solists – watch:

The second recording section were recorded the Orchestra with jazz ensemble and invited soloists and singers – watch:

To find out more, collaborate with the work and receive information about Vadico’s work and the development of project activities. In return, when the CD is ready, you will receive a gift copy, with your name printed on the insert, an autograph and a special dedication.

Support Franco Galvão via the Patreon platform. https://patreon.com/francog

Watch the television report made by Heloísa Villela about Franco Galvão’s research and the discovery of Vadico’s unreleased music pieces:

And also Franco Galvão made a website for Vadico. Check it out! https://vadicogogliano.com