I love new music from different places. About seven years ago, I was on Pandora searching for new music. I was thinking I should look up the type of music my cousin likes to learn as a mandolin player. I started listening to a Brazilian music station and found a band called Choro Das Tres. I had to share my discovery of this band with my cousin Solly. He ended up loving their music so much that he went to one of their concerts in Kentucky and met them! Incredibly, he ended up joining the three sisters and their father on stage and started playing with them. Choro Das Tres invited him to play with them even more backstage after their concert!
When I had made plans to go abroad for a semester in Argentina, Solly reached out to Choro Das Tres to see if we could stay with them in Brazil. They were so welcoming, and even though they were busy recording a new album, the three sisters and their parents hosted me before my trip to Argentina. My cousin Solly could only stay one week in Brazil, but I was able to stay for two more weeks. During my extended stay in the family’s home, they taught me so much about their language and culture in southern Brazil. They live in a smaller city known as Porto Feliz, which is outside the big city of Sao Paulo.
