Formed in 2018, the duo performs original compositions and reinterpretations with a repertoire that goes from Brazilian Music and Jazz up to classics of Pop Music. With a desire to surprise the audience through the use of various rhythms and timbres, between tradition and innovation, Chinela Groove is the artistic outcome of the collaborative study and creative process from Ariel Oliveira and Davi Moreno. Using as primary instruments keyboards and amplified pandeiro, their interest is always on exploring and experimenting with rhythms, influences, techniques, and timbres. This includes experimenting also with audio exploring microphone techniques, the use of synthesizer and effects and even different mixing approaches as part of their quest to establish a unique identity for the project.
Ariel Oliveira
Multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and audio engineer, Ariel holds a degree in musical composition from UNESP (São Paulo State University Júlio de Mesquita Filho). Despite his background in Classical and Electroacoustic Music, he has recently been more involved in projects within Popular Music, such as Chinela Groove. With no formal training in piano, he has been developing himself as pianist in an independent way, striving to find his own voice and seeking smart ways to make his artistic expression increasingly free. With a deep interest in the culture of his own country, he has over 15 years of immersion and researches in Brazilian cultural manifestations, aiming to enrich his original work with the influences, wisdom, and messages of these traditions.
Davi Moreno
Percussionist from São Paulo dedicated to exploring rhythmic possibilities in a creative way of both Brazilian and universal music through the logic of the modern pandeiro. A historian and education specialist, his musical journey began as a self-taught artist in a very musical family environment. He started drumming in his childhood and, throughout his youth, learned various percussion instruments such as singing and playing guitar. He began to deepen the studies in percussion with Ari Colares, exploring popular percussion and Brazilian rhythms with African origins, playing various traditional instruments with both hand and stick techniques. He delved deeper into the modern pandeiro under the guidance of Gustavo Bali, enhancing his basic and advanced pandeiro techniques, language, musical expression, and improvisation, and also studied Brazilian drumming with Christiano Rocha.
Over the years, he has performed in musical ensembles of various styles and genres, including forró, samba, samba-rock, MPB, Jazz, and live performances in music for theatre. Since 2018, he has been developing his own work with the use of amplified pandeiro using a modern technique primarily influenced by Marcos Suzano and has pursued improvisational studies within Chinela Groove.