Ian Coury & Catherine Bent

“Chorinhos are cheery, tidy, charming love poems in their native Brazil. Catherine Bent and Ian Coury deftly captured the precise grace and delicate humor in beautifully crafted, genially executed chorinhos—classic and original—at Club Passim in April 2023. Look forward to fresh recordings and more lively performances by this dynamic, copacetic duo.” —Fred Bouchard, New York City Jazz Record/DownBeat

Ian Coury is an award-winning 10-string bandolim (Brazilian mandolin) player from Brazil who has shared stages with Brazilian legends like Toninho Horta and Hamilton de Holanda. At twenty-one years of age, he is a gifted composer and a phenomenal master of his instrument.

English-born cellist and composer Catherine Bent, an alumna of Cirque du Soleil, has performed and recorded with artists as diverse as Joe Jackson, Lee Konitz, Donna Summer, and poet laureate Robert Pinsky. She tours in Brazil and Europe and has a worldwide reputation as the leading cellist in Brazilian choro music.

The two have a musical connection that transcends their backgrounds and crystallizes around their passion for the Afro-European traditions of Brazil.

Catherine Bent has developed a rhythmic technique for playing the cello that replaces the guitar and percussion in a traditional rhythm section. Each instrument deftly contributing melody, rhythm and harmony, the duo is complete in itself: lyrical, harmonically sophisticated, and deeply grooving.

Ian and Catherine's unique instrumentation and flights into spontaneous territory set them apart from other choro musicians in Brazil and beyond. In addition to representing both classic and modern repertoire, they also perform their original compositions in choro, samba and forró styles.