[Gago da Camarada Camara]
(b Rio de Janeiro c1769; d Rio de Janeiro, July 19, 1835) Brazilian composer, performer of viola (five-course guitar) and cavaquinho (machete), and author of modinhas. Mixed-race and self-taught, unable to read or write music, he was considered an amateur, whose improvised verses with viola accompaniment belonged to oral tradition. His more than 20 modinhas would have been lost had they not been written down by musicians who witnessed his performances in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, especially Sigismund Neukomm (1778–1858). Born in Rio de Janeiro, as a child he spent some time with his father in Bahia. In the last years of the 18th century he left for Lisbon, where he became successful performing in salons. Thanks to the habit of including modinhas in the intermezzi of popular theaters, at least two of them were presented at the Theatro do Salitre, in the early years of the 19th century, in versions by ...