by Ulrich Schultheiss

How did a contemporary composer come up with the idea to compose a piece of music like bossa news? Actually, it is not really unusual, for somebody who has played and arranged so much music from the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, among others. This piece is interesting because of the combination of Latin American style with elements of contemporary European music.  The result is certainly not a new “Girl from Ipamema”, nevertheless the piece still allows the occasional bop-along.

bossa news was composed in 2010 after Helmut Schätz, the Principal Trombonist of the Regensburg Philharmonic Orchestra, came up with the idea.