Brighten Your Summer With Tio Chorinho

Award-winning vocalist Flávia Nascimento brings her special flair

Tio Chorinho, billed as the first ensemble in Canada dedicated to performing choro music, is coming to Lions Bay on August 3. They will be joined by Flávia Nascimento, a frequent collaborator with the band, who is known for her Northeastern Brazilian style.

This band, winners of the 2025 Canadian Folk Music Award for Instrumental Group of the Year, embrace and extend the authentic spirit of choro, which is known for its infectious urban folk style.

Tickets are selling like hotcakes, according to Tamara Leger, who has been organizing Lions Bay House Concerts since 2015.

Musician and band founder Eric Stein says the band began as a duo in 2009, with the core of the current lineup in place for about a dozen years.

In addition to founding Tio Chorinho, versatile musician Stein plays mandolin and bass in a number of other bands. He credits his interest in different styles of music to the inspiration he gets from working with other artists. "While I do play a variety of styles with different ensembles that might seem quite disparate, there are lots of common elements across them all," he says, noting that the mandolin offers the versatility of use in many different musical styles.

Beyond that, he says the common denominator in his work is the collaborative process he follows in most projects, with Tio Chorinho no exception. "We work together in choosing repertoire and developing arrangements, always seeking to highlight all of our musical personalities and collective creativity, and striving for a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts."

Multi-instrumentalist Carlos Cordozo says that performing with Tio Chorinho brings back memories of Brazil. "I come from Pernambuco, a province northeast of Brazil where frevo and choro are quite strong rhythms performed," he says. "Playing choro, and also in our repertoire we have “Choro Frevados,” it definitely brings me back home and makes me want to enrich my playing and my roots within the style."

Band-member André Valério, a Brazilian-born guitarist based in Toronto, is also a composer and music teacher, who says that performing and teaching go side by side.

He says that playing fuels his creativity and keeps him active on the instrument. "With Tio Chorinho especially, I play the seven-string guitar, and there’s a lot of improvisation involved — it feels very much like bebop jazz, but within the language of Brazilian choro."

When he's onstage, he says he is living what he teaches. "It’s a cycle that keeps both parts of my career vibrant. I have a deep passion for the stage, and just as much love for guiding my students along their own musical paths."

They are joined by Brazilian samba musician and percussionist Maninho Costa, with Miloš Popović on the accordion, and special guest vocalist Flávia Nascimento.

Nascimento was born in Brazil, and graduated as an actress from the University Theatre in Belo Horizonte.  But she has been singing and performing since childhood with her father, who is also a singer and guitarist. She has performed in festivals all over the world, and in 2015 received the Stingray Rising Stars Award for her performance in Montreal.

Stein says the band is in the middle of creating a collaborative album with Nascimento, and will share a number of recording sessions in Vancouver after the tour.

This is Tio Chorinho's second tour in BC with Flavia, with Lions Bay marking their final performance in a tour that's taken them to locations all around the province.

Also celebrating this final stop will be members of the Brazilian consulate, who have been invited to join in on the fun. Leger is pulling out all the stops and will be running a music and art collaboration with Art Vancouver at the same time as the concert.

As always with Lions Bay House Concerts, the event is a pot-luck, and a chance for neighbours to enjoy music in each other's company. This event is sponsored by Thyra McKilligan of Re/Max Masters and the West Vancouver Foundation.

Lions Bay House Concert

featuring

Tio Chorinho and Flávia Nascimento

and

Art Vancouver

August 3, 7-10 p.m.

Lions Bay Village Hall

Tickets HERE