Arranging for Brasil Jazz Sinfônica: Inside the Work of an Arranger and Composer
- Rafael Piccolotto de Lima
- Jun 25
- 9 min read
What happens when a song originally accompanied by a small band is performed by a jazz symphony orchestra with dozens of musicians?
The answer involves much more than expanding the instrumentation. Each project requires a deep understanding of the invited artist’s musical world, decisions about what to preserve from the original work, and the exploration of new possibilities through orchestral writing.
These are some of the questions that define the arranger’s work.
Over the past several years, I have had the opportunity to explore this process while writing dozens of arrangements for Brasil Jazz Sinfônica alongside artists such as Ivan Lins, Mart’nália, Mônica Salmaso, Vanessa da Mata, Alceu Valença, Chico César, Mariana Aydar, Mestrinho, Martinho da Vila, Alcione, Arnaldo Antunes, Zélia Duncan, Céu, Tim Bernardes, Dora Morelenbaum, Paula Morelenbaum, Filó Machado, and Renato Borghetti.
Although these artists have very different repertoires, aesthetics, and artistic trajectories, every project raised the same fundamental question.
On one side was the musical identity each guest artist had developed over the course of their career.
On the other was the sound of Brasil Jazz Sinfônica, an institution that occupies a unique place in Brazilian music by bringing together the symphonic tradition, Brazilian popular music, and jazz within a single ensemble.
Each project required decisions about how to bring these worlds together while preserving what made each artist immediately recognizable and, at the same time, exploring the possibilities offered by the orchestra.
→ Read also: What Happens When a Popular Artist Meets an Orchestra?
How My Collaboration with Brasil Jazz Sinfônica Began
My relationship with the orchestra began before my first professional commissions.
An arrangement I wrote for Ponta de Areia, by Milton Nascimento and Fernando Brant, received recognition in a national arranging competition and became part of the repertoire of Brasil Jazz Sinfônica’s Big Band.
I also participated in a composition competition organized by the institution. Although my work was not selected as the winner, it was chosen for concert performances at Sala São Paulo and Memorial da América Latina.
That selection was particularly meaningful because of the affinity between the musical world explored by Brasil Jazz Sinfônica and many of the interests that had already become central to my own artistic work.
At that time, I was already serving as a Composer Fellow at the Henry Mancini Institute in Miami, writing for the institution’s jazz symphony orchestra. Still, there was a curious inversion: my music was already being performed by large ensembles outside Brazil and by artists such as Chick Corea and Terence Blanchard, yet I had not developed a relationship with a Brazilian institution dedicated precisely to the meeting point between popular music, jazz, and orchestral writing. In that sense, my first collaborations with Brasil Jazz Sinfônica felt like a natural continuation of the artistic path I had already been pursuing as a composer and arranger.
Those experiences opened the door to my first professional collaborations with the orchestra and to a relationship that would continue to grow over the following years.
→ Related article: Between Academia and the Professional World: My Experience at the Henry Mancini Institute
→ Related article: Behind the Scenes of Jazz and the Philharmonic: Writing for Chick Corea, Terence Blanchard, and Eric Owens
A New Phase of Concerts with Guest Artists
An important part of this collaboration developed during the return of live performances after the pandemic.
During that period, Brasil Jazz Sinfônica launched a concert series bringing together guest artists from Brazilian popular music and the orchestra. Featuring performers from different generations, musical styles, and artistic backgrounds, these concerts created new dialogues between artists whose repertoires shared affinities or unexpected points of connection.
Each project required the creation of entirely new arrangements. Songs originally conceived for voice and band had to be reimagined for the orchestra.
It was in this context that invitations to write arrangements for Brasil Jazz Sinfônica began to arrive more frequently. Among the earliest projects were concerts with Ivan Lins and Mart’nália, presented at Sala São Paulo and broadcast by TV Cultura.
It was a very particular moment. The orchestra was still performing in a reduced format, using only the string section and rhythm section. Musicians performed wearing masks, and audience capacity remained limited. Even so, the music continued reaching listeners through television broadcasts and recordings produced by TV Cultura during that period.
Over the following years, this collaboration expanded into dozens of concerts featuring guest artists from many different musical backgrounds. Many of these projects became part of the Série Encontros Históricos, curated by Glauber Amaral and co-produced by Barravento Artes. The series ultimately became one of the main platforms for my work as an arranger with Brasil Jazz Sinfônica.
How an Arrangement for Brasil Jazz Sinfônica Takes Shape
The process usually began with a message from the conductor or musical director responsible for the project.
Over the years, many of these collaborations came through invitations from conductors João Maurício Galindo, Gustavo Petri, and Ruriá Duprat, who, at different moments, served as the orchestra’s artistic directors, musical directors, and conductors.
Once my availability was confirmed, I would receive a reference recording, the instrumentation for the concert, and general artistic directions. Occasionally there was also a lead sheet, which made the process easier.
In most cases, the overall structure of the song remained close to the original recording.
The vocal portion was usually preserved, while the greatest creative freedom lay in building the arrangement around it. Introductions, endings, instrumental sections, transitions, and other developmental passages could be created or expanded to explore the possibilities offered by the orchestra.
Since the guest artists already had an established relationship with this repertoire, their interpretations generally remained close to the versions they already performed in concerts and recordings, concentrating most of the musical reinvention in the orchestral writing itself.
The next stage was listening and analysis.
It was often necessary to transcribe the melody, harmony, and other musical elements directly from the original recording, since many artists did not have written scores of their repertoire.
Once this material had been organized, the creative phase began. This was the moment to experiment with ideas, test formal possibilities, and explore different ways of expanding the original material through orchestral writing.
As those ideas became more defined, the actual writing process began. From that point forward, every musical idea needed to be fully developed through orchestration.
The final stage consisted of preparing a simple digital reference mock-up generated directly from the notation software, together with the complete full score and all the individual instrumental parts. This meant manually reviewing and editing well over one hundred pages of music before delivering the final materials to the orchestra’s library.
Entering the Artist’s Musical World
Each guest artist brought their own musical language.
The musical world of Martinho da Vila, deeply rooted in samba and Brazilian popular song, presents very different challenges from those found in a project with Filó Machado, whose instrumental music often explores less predictable harmonic paths and a distinct relationship with improvisation.
Likewise, artists such as Mônica Salmaso and Liniker have highly individual sounds, repertoires, and vocal approaches. Every project required understanding those characteristics before making the first decisions on the page. This diversity was one of the greatest strengths of these concerts, and also one of the arranger’s greatest challenges.
The work consisted of understanding the musical logic of each repertoire before making any compositional decision. The goal was never to replace the identity of the original work, but rather to create an orchestral setting capable of engaging in a meaningful dialogue with it.
Bringing the Artist into the Orchestra’s World
At the same time, these concerts also needed to explore what makes Brasil Jazz Sinfônica distinctive.
A large orchestral ensemble offers possibilities that simply do not exist in smaller groups. It allows for broader timbral combinations, shifting the spotlight between different sections, creating multiple simultaneous layers of writing, and developing music on a scale rarely possible in smaller ensembles.
An important part of the work was finding ways to use these resources without losing the connection to the guest artist’s musical identity.
Every arrangement ultimately tried to answer the same question: what can this piece of music become when it encounters an orchestra like Brasil Jazz Sinfônica?
→ Related: Writing Brazilian Music for Orchestra: Between Popular Music, Jazz, and Concert Music
A Case Study: “Espumas ao Vento”
Among the many arrangements I wrote for the orchestra, one that best represents this approach is my version of Espumas ao Vento for Mariana Aydar and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica.
The song already possessed a strong artistic identity in Mariana Aydar’s recorded version. My arrangement began from that identity and sought to expand its possibilities through orchestral writing.
Throughout the piece, different instrumental groups take the foreground at different moments. Textures shift, densities change, orchestral soloists emerge, and new timbral combinations expand the original material.
At the same time, Mariana Aydar’s artistic voice remains at the center of the musical narrative.
That balance has always been one of the most rewarding aspects of writing for large ensembles.
The project also carried a special meaning by bringing my orchestral writing into dialogue with a musical language that has long been part of my artistic life: forró.
→ Read also: Forró Sem Palavras: Building Bridges Between Forró, Jazz, Concert Music, and the Contexts Where Music Lives
Between Arranging and Composition
Although much of my collaboration with Brasil Jazz Sinfônica took place through arrangements for guest artists, some projects occupied a different territory situated somewhere between arranging and composition.
One of the most significant examples emerged from a commission created to feature trumpeter Sidmar Vieira as a soloist with the orchestra.
The proposal grew from Brasil Jazz Sinfônica’s desire to create, within these concerts with guest artists, a moment that highlighted both the orchestra itself and some of its musicians. Sidmar Vieira, one of the ensemble’s leading soloists and improvisers, and someone with whom I had already collaborated on several projects over the years, including Orquestra Urbana, was chosen for that role.
From that commission came the idea of revisiting Rasga Coração, from Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Choros No. 10. Choosing the work was my own decision and reflected Villa-Lobos’s enduring influence on the way I think about orchestral writing and Brazilian musical identity.
The project began with the original work, but involved creating new sections, expanding the formal structure, re-orchestrating existing material, and developing a musical language specifically conceived for Brasil Jazz Sinfônica.
Rather than simply adapting the piece, the project reimagined it within a new orchestral context, preserving central aspects of Villa-Lobos’s writing while exploring possibilities that emerged from the intersection of symphony orchestra, Brazilian popular music, and jazz.
Unlike most arrangements written for guest artists, this project offered a much greater degree of creative freedom.
In many Brasil Jazz Sinfônica concerts, the starting point was a song that already had a well-established interpretation by the guest artist. The arranger’s role was to build a new orchestral dimension around that interpretation while preserving its defining musical characteristics.
Here, however, the proposal was different. Beyond featuring Sidmar Vieira as soloist, there were no predetermined artistic guidelines about what the piece should become. That freedom allowed me to choose the source material, define the formal direction of the work, and make artistic decisions without remaining tied to a previously established version.
It became possible to expand sections, create entirely new material, develop original passages, and move much closer to the compositional process itself. Rather than simply constructing a new orchestral setting around existing material, the work required decisions that reflected my own artistic voice as a composer more directly.
What This Experience Has Meant in My Career
Over the years, Brasil Jazz Sinfônica has become one of the most important spaces where I have explored ideas that continue to shape much of my work: writing for large ensembles and creating dialogue between different musical languages.
Every project began with a different repertoire, a different artist, and a different set of circumstances. Yet they all revolved around the same question:
What can a piece of music become when it encounters an orchestra like Brasil Jazz Sinfônica?
More Arrangements for Brasil Jazz Sinfônica
Below are some of these performances, recorded in concert and broadcast by TV Cultura.
Deus Me Proteja
Chico César, Mestrinho, and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica
Arrangement written for a concert featuring Chico César and Mestrinho. The project brought the orchestra into dialogue with the musical language of forró and Northeastern Brazilian music.
Só Você e Eu
Vanessa da Mata, Céu, and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica
Minha Voz, Minha Vida
Dora Morelenbaum, Tim Bernardes, and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica
Arrangement written for a concert honoring Gal Costa, performed by Dora Morelenbaum and Tim Bernardes alongside Brasil Jazz Sinfônica. The project celebrated repertoire associated with Gal Costa through a new orchestral interpretation.
Flor de Maracujá
Paula Morelenbaum and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica
Arrangement written for a concert honoring João Donato, bringing together Paula Morelenbaum and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica.
Barra do Ribeira
Renato Borghetti, Daniel Sá, and Brasil Jazz Sinfônica
Arrangement written for a concert featuring Renato Borghetti and Daniel Sá. The project brought together elements of Brazilian instrumental music with a particular focus on the musical traditions of southern Brazil.
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About the Author
Rafael Piccolotto de Lima is a composer, arranger, music director, and educator. A Latin Grammy-nominated composer and recipient of 13 DownBeat Awards, he teaches, mentors, and supports musicians in the areas of composition, arranging, musical creativity, and artistic development.
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