Choro de Rua was born in 2012 from the desire of spreading Choro (to be pronounced “shoro”) in Italy and Europe, to give everyone the opportunity of appreciating this sophisticated instrumental Brazilian music, good to be played and to be listened to. Since then, Choro de Rua duo, formed by the Italian flutist Barbara Piperno and the Brazilian 7-string guitarist and mandolinist Marco Ruviaro, has had an intense musical activity trying to disseminate Choro around the world, playing, recording, organizing masterclasses, making researches, connecting people etc.

Santo Bálsamo has been published by Visage Music label in 2020. It’s the result of a deep and careful research into contemporary Choro. Among the composers featured on the album, in addition to Marco Ruviaro himself, there are some outstanding musicians on the current Brazilian music scene, including Hamilton de Holanda and André Mehmari. In this album, there are two incredible guests: Gabriele Mirabassi (clarinet) and Elizabeth Fadel (piano).

Around 1870, popular music players in Rio de Janeiro — that was the economic and cultural capital of Brazil in those years — started to perform the repertoire of European dances in vogue amid the aristocracy of XIX century (like waltz, scottish and polka) in a “brazilerized” form, with strong influence of African origin’s rhythms. Thus CHORO was born! Since then, the musical universe of Choro has always embraced different rhythms and styles, including polka, waltz, baião, frevo, maxixe and tango brasileiro, and had a decisive influence on the development of samba and bossa-nova.

Most of the Brazilian composers has dealt and still deals with Choro, from Villa-Lobos to Nazareth, from Tom Jobim to Gismonti, from Chico Buarque to Guinga, and several generations of musicians have always contribute to the development and dissemination of Choro with a lot of love and passion for this music. Thanks to all this, Choro has become the most important Brazilian instrumental music.

Barbara Piperno, born in 1980 in Italy, graduated in flute at Conservatorio Gioachino Rossini in 1996. Besides the activity as a classical musician, she experimented other musical genres and discovered the voice as an additional instrument to express herself. Since 2011, she has been dedicating to Brazilian popular music, in particular to Choro. She recorded several albums and performed in Italy and abroad. She has different groups, as Choro de Rua, Regional Matuto, Elizabeth Fadel and Barbara Piperno duo and Dialogues between a Guqin and a Dizi.

Marco Ruviaro, born in 1978 in São Paulo (Brazil), started studying music at the age of 11. Self-taught mandolinist, he is graduated in classical guitar at the Universidade Estadual Paulista. He studied guitar with Paulo Porto Alegre, Sidney Molina, Giacomo Bartoloni and Luciano Lima. He is professor of guitar and mandolin. He has several music projects in different countries: Duo Baguá (Spain), New York Choro Duo (USA), Regional Matuto and Choro de Rua (Italy). He released 9 albums of Choro and, among them, there is “Acabou o sossego…“ (2014), his first album exclusively dedicated to his own compositions. Guest of many international Choro festivals and events, he is considered a virtuoso exponent of the genre.