Featured music: Egberto Gismonti

With some delay again, I proudly present you the Brazilian virtuoso Egberto Gismonti. He was born with a gift, but on top of that he studied music with no other than Nadia Boulanger (!). This guy is a 'MacGyver' of music, give him a pen, a rubber band and bubble gum and he will play it.
Interestingly, he struggled for years and years to buy the copyright of his huge musical production off EMI International. He succeeded, but that's not quite it for him. In his own words:

“In the last 3 years I have been working to get permission from the great copyright powerhouses such as ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors y Publishers) and GEMA (Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights) to allow people to download my entire production for free. Why do I want to give my music away? Because after more than 30 years as a professional musician I know that the real responsibles for all I have done are the people who enjoy my music and attend my concerts and buy my records, not the companies that produce them. I would love to see the day when music and books are free. In Brazil, a book costs 20 dollars. The same for a CD. That’s absurd. As a producer, I know a record cannot possibly cost that much. In a world like the one we live in, the only way to make our art transcedent is to make the financial question become irrelevant.”

Wow.

Enjoy.