This album is part of a soundtrack from a TV show about Francisca Edwiges Neves Gonzaga (October 17, 1847 - February 28, 1935 Rio de Janeiro), a brazilian composer, pianist and conductor.
She fought for the end of slavery in Brazil. Gonzaga received an education that would ordinarily have lead her to be a “sinhazinha”, a respectful officer's daughter. She learned how to read, write, and do math, but also music, especially how to play the piano, a distinctive mark of a real lady.
Chiquinha began to participate in balls and “chorões” reunions, normally reserved for men, where she met the flautist Joaquim Callado and started to play in his group, O Choro do Calado, being the first woman to play in this group. During this time she composed her first success, the polka Atraente, in 1877, composed by the piano, as an improvisation, during a ‘choro’ meeting. She is the most important feminine figure of Brazilian music of all time, Chiquinha Gonzaga was an independent woman in times of extreme prejudice and earned her money with her own music. The first Brazilian female conductor, the first composer of the marcha carnavalesca genre (with "Ô Abre Alas"), she was also very active in the abolitionist and republican campaigns. Her songs had enormous success, yielding an international career and songs still commonly used.
Read more here :
http://www.answers.com/topic/chiquinha-gonzaga
