Review: Yamandu Costa at Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre

Yamandu Costa at Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre
Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Brazilian guitarist and composer Yamandu Costa kicked off his Australian tour with a delightful performance on a rainy Tuesday night in Perth. Costa’s promoters actually tacked on this first show after selling out the original Wednesday night opener. What a fantastic way to be welcomed to the furthest corner of Australia for your first ever WA performance!

Plain and simple: Yamandu Costa is an excellent player of the Brazilian seven-string classical guitar. His strokes, his plucks, and his strums display a mastery of folk music from across Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

Costa spent a little over an hour at the Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre in Mosman Park working through a small selection of compositions from a body of work spanning some thirty-four releases. He sits alone on stage, says little to avoid speaking English, and enjoys sips of maté, a traditional South American type of herbal tea.

On this night the audience whooped and whistled to fast-paced chorinho rhythms; sat back and relaxed to bossa nova compositions; were romanced by the sounds of tango; and dreamt about warmer days and cool drinks with samba in the background. At times, Costa would whistle, wail, hum, or sing with a voice long and clear to accompany his melodies. The man even tunes his guitar beautifully.

Perth is made up of people from all parts of the world, but the city can still feel incredibly segregated. It’s a delight that Costa draws out an enthusiastic fan base of Portuguese-speaking residents that you’d never know existed out here unless you went searching for them hard. It’s also a delight to see people from an assortment of ages out on a school night in the depths of winter.

Let’s end with the venue, which was a surprise in itself. The Joy Shepherd Performing Arts Centre is a gleaming tower nestled within the sprawling campus of the exceedingly wealthy St. Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls (the centre’s lobby is christened The Forrest Foyer). The 900-seater venue is available for community and commercial use on a “considered individual basis.” It’s unclear what the phrase means, but given how multi-use performance venues are harder to come by as you travel towards Fremantle, it’s great to see a private school stepping up to deliver a healthy dollop of wonderful sounds in an alcohol-free environment. Promoters take note.

If you read this and live on the east coast, please go see Yamandu Costa if you can. If not, definitely give him a listen.

KAVI GUPPTA