Pianist Mike del Ferro, winner of NativeDSD’s Album of the Year Award for Solo Piano in 2020 for his album Skylark: Solo Piano and Beyond returns to NativeDSD with his latest recording Sintonia: Songs from Brazil.

The Portuguese word Sintonia carries many meanings: tuning, harmony, agreement. Here, Sintonia: Songs from Brazil is more than a title. It is the thread connecting Jorge Amado and Dorival Caymmi’s storytelling with the lesser-known treasures of Jobim, Buarque, and Nascimento, and the dialogue between Mike del Ferro’s piano and Femke Smit’s voice, giving these songs new life.

The haunting poetry of Dorival Caymmi’s ‘É doce morrer no mar’ sets the tone for this album. Written in 1941 with novelist Jorge Amado, the song belongs to the canções praieiras tradition of Bahia—music steeped in the lives of fishermen, the power of the ocean, and the presence of Iemanjá, the Afro-Brazilian sea goddess. Caymmi’s imagery captures both devotion and danger: love, longing, and loss flowing together in one eternal tide.

In the hands of Femke Smit and Mike del Ferro, “É doce morrer no mar” becomes a guiding metaphor. Their interpretation, while honoring the song’s original spirit, saudade, loss and devotion, opens a new dialogue between voice and piano. Even for listeners unfamiliar with Portuguese, their emotional performance draws you into Caymmi’s timeless sense of longing.

Femke Smit is from the Netherlands, but her musical homeland is unmistakably Brazil. She shares that passion with jazz pianist Mike del Ferro. When they met for the first time in Rio de Janeiro in April 2023, the spark was immediate. Their shared background in classical music, both are children of opera singers, combined with a deep grounding in jazz and rhythm-based music, formed fertile ground for this meeting of hearts.

Femke Smit, Vocals
Mike del Ferro, Piano