Colonial Resonances: Listening to the Chorus Brasilicus

In August 1619, a play representing Portuguese conquests in the East was performed at the Jesuit college in Lisbon before King Philip III during a visit to his Portuguese kingdom. The play included a Brazilian scene with a “Chorus Brasilicus,” whose lyrics in the Indigenous language of Tupi are recorded in two texts that describe the performance but do not include the musical notation. In May 2026, a group of musicians and scholars gathered in São Paulo to re-create and perform the Chorus Brasilicus. This talk will share the video of the performance and discuss what was learned by not just reading but listening to the Chorus Brasilicus and reflecting on its colonial resonance with an interdisciplinary group of scholars. 

Procession of “Queen America,” Stuttgart, 1599 (Klassik Stiftung Weimar, Bestand Museen)