Taiguara

Thirteen years after performing in Brazil for the last time, Taiguara returned with the concert "Thirteen Octobers" and released two more albums: "Cançoes de Amor e Liberdade" {Songs of love and Freedom} (1984) and "Brazil Afri" {Afro Brasil} (1994) in the following years. On 14 February 1996 he died from bladder cancer. His last project, an album of songs that celebrated and examined the joys and hardships of the poor living on the slums of Rio de Janeiro, never came to completion.

Due to a series of disagreements with the military dictators in power, his career in Brazil was interrupted in the mid-1970s and he was forced to move abroad, settling in London, where he studied at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, played with the London Symphony Orchestra and recorded the album Let the Children Hear the Music. The album set a precedent, as it became the first foreign recording by a Brazilian musician censored in Brazil (the same record was never released in England either, having been deemed "misplaced" by the studios). During a second exile, Taiguara also lived in Paris and a few African countries, mainly Tanzania, where he studied Journalism for a year.

Taiguara was born in Montevideo, Uruguay as his father toured the country as a musician, but grew up in Rio and later moved to São Paulo. While attending Law School at Mackenzie University, he became increasingly involved with student organised recitals and performances, eventually abandoning the course altogether to pursue a musical career full-time. In 1964, he joined the Sambalanço Trio and started receiving media attention, which yielded his first offer from record label Phillips. In 1965, Taiguara recorded his first of several albums, and in the following years won many awards.

Taiguara was born on October 9, 1945 in Montevideo, Uruguay as Taiguara Chalar da Silva.