Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Sérgio and Odair Assad

This is an unusual crossover collaboration between violinist Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Brazilian guitar duo of Sergio and Odair Assad. The music, all arranged or composed by Sergio Assad, claims a wide variety of cultural influences. Spanish, Russian, Turkish, Hungarian, Macedonian and Transylvanian materials all find their way into the program, which somehow conveys a consistent atmosphere of plaintive melancholy, reflective nostalgia and restless longing. Of course, if you scratch a fiddler you may find a gypsy underneath, and Salerno-Sonnenberg, who has never lacked for inner spark, sounds quite convincing in this more unbuttoned, folky context, poised very much between classical and "world" styles. This is one of those unexpected discs that is obviously the result of much care, sympathy and devotion, and the results it yields are uniquely affecting.