SONG AND DANCE:

Banda Magda and Felipe Hostins Trio at Music Haven Sunday. Aug. 18

Both bands combined in the finale at Music Haven Sunday; also the finale of the global music offerings presented in the Central Park free concert series. (Three alfresco film events remain.)

Before joining forces in a nine-piece world-music juggernaut, the Felipe Hostins Trio made every dance rhythm into a song, then Banda Magda made every song into a dance.

Banda Magda with Felipe Hostins Trio in a final bow together

More than the sum of its parts, accordionist Hostins’ trio with zabumba (bass drum) player Davi Vieira and triangle player and singer(!) Chrystal E. Williams usually had five things going on at once. He played two rhythms on accordion, Vieira played different beats on his drum with a mallet up top and a thin stick below while Williams’s metal triangle completed a complex rhythmic celebration. They base their music in Brazilian forro, dominant beat of the four that Music Haven chief Mona Golub memorized to list accurately in her introduction.

Felipe Hostins Trio – From left, triangle player/singer Chrystal E. Williams, Hostins, Davi Vieira, zabumba

The lively rhythm that powered “Under My Umbrella” sounded much like reggae in its cheerful syncopation but everything exemplified the title of their first propulsive tune “As espacial,” Portuguese for “Made to Smile.”

Smiles turned to awe, however, when Williams first sang in an opera-grandeur soprano. She opened her mouth and ours all fell open. Hostins and Viera sang well, too; but she was magnificent.

After retired restaurateur/still active event host LeGrande Serras opened his announcement of Schenectady’s Greek Festival (Sept. 6-8 downtown) in Greek, the delighted Banda Magda leader Magda Giannikou gave him the first of the night’s many onstage hugs.

Banda Magda may be the most international ensemble all season, Magda singing in seven languages the songs comprising her ambitious spring project for which she hand-picked this version of her band. She characterized this repertoire as old, new and future. Consistently inventive melodies in kaleidoscopic arrangements over dance-y beats made it all feel seamless, despite its wide variety. Magda connected with the audience like large magnets tugging stage and seats together; and not just when she taught her fans to sing startlingly complex vocal lines.

She is a full-body singer, a non-stop (barefoot) dancer and adept instrumentalist with accordion, guitar and vibraphone chops. (A fan’s compliment for her accordion playing afterward at the merch table – every CD sold – prompted her to admit with excess modesty, “I’m a fake accordion player; but Felipe is the real deal!”)

Darian Donoval Thomas, violin

Bob Lanzetti, guitar

Ignacio Hernandez, guitar

She started quietly enough, airy extended high-chord bowing by violinist Darian Donovan Thomas (in red socks, pleated kilt and giant ‘fro) with delicate riffs by longtime guitarists Bob Lanzetti and Ignacio Hernandez. Mark Vanderpool’s bowed bass and Murph Aucamp’s vibes built a quiet, meditative mood under these stringed things and Magda’s ethereal voice. A brief pause, then the guitars surged into solo swapping, Magda strapped on her accordion and the band jelled in power and purpose. Later, Aucamp mostly played drums, except in a vibes duet with Magda; he played a duet drum break with Vieira.

Mark Vanderpool, bass

Magda cited nature in her song intros, but this didn’t make the music any less magical or abstract. She sang of the sea in “Umi,” in Japanese which she said she’d learned to converse with friends while studying music in Boston; then of forests whose bird theme prompted Thomas to bow birdsongs as the crowd sang them.

Magda played guitar in “Tam Tam” before inviting Hostins back onstage for a Brazilian/Italian hybrid true to both traditions. Another Italian tune, about light in darkness, prompted a vibes duet, Thomas pedaling eerie effects from his violin.

Magda and Murph Aucamp, vibes

Magda in the crowd

Dancers clustered up front including some children and a woman carrying a small dog; Magda twice left the stage to join them and moved all over, singing or playing or not. Playfully, aggressively international, Magda and band bridged oceans and traditions in sounds that always felt fresh, understood and respected and never superficially borrowed.

Magda invited Hostins and his trio onstage for a two-part celebration of Luiz Gonzaga’s 1940s-vintage “Savia,” first a reverently straight reading then a pause and a shift into what a fan helpfully suggested would be crazy. They exploded it in a jazzy exploration and everybody onstage got a piece of it.

Repeats are rare in Music Haven presentations, and its predecessor, Second Wind Productions. Some have passed on – folk giant Odetta, for example; others, including Los Lobos, have grown too popular/expensive.

Before the show, Golub recalled only Plena Libre, Mokoomba and Maura O’Connell as repeat performers before Banda Magda earned a rare return here after a 2019 smash in Music Haven’s Passport Series at Proctors GE Theater.

Awed afterwards, Golub said Banda Magda had made all that world-music magic after only two rehearsals here, at SUNY Schenectady. Sunday was the band’s first show.