About
Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer, pianist, arranger and singer from Rio de Janeiro. She is influenced by popular Brazilian culture, Romanticism, world music and Jazz.
She comes from a musical family, which includes her father, guitarist Sergio Assad, her uncle, guitarist Odair Assad, and her aunt, singer songwriter Badi Assad.
Assad has performed professionally since the age of seven. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago and a master's degree in Composition from the University of Michigan. She is a 2009 Latin Grammy nominee.
Born in Campo Grande, a modest suburb in the west portion of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Assad is the first daughter of musician Sergio Assad and school teacher Celia Maria Vasconcelos da Cunha, who named her child after the late Brazilian-Ukrainian writer Clarice Lispector. Assad began creating music at the age of six with the help of her father.
Assad was born with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a group of disorders that affect connective tissues, which severely limited her ability to perform musical instruments at an early age, but the condition did not affect her voice. As a child Assad sang numerous jingles for radio and television, as well as albums including tracks for pop star Luiz Caldas and Brazilian soul musician Hyldon. During early adolescence, as her joints became stronger, she began playing piano mostly by ear and became interested in jazz. The years that followed were filled with intensive training in music, piano, composition and arranging with Sheila Zagury, Linda Bustani and Leandro Braga.
In 1993, Assad and her younger brother Rodrigo Assad moved to France to live with their father, in a home he shared with his second wife and their child Julia. Assad studied piano and improvisation privately with Natalie Fortin, a professor from Le Conservatoire national Supérieur de Paris, and benefited also from her father's mentorship, composing and arranging numerous pieces. This was a prolific period, though short lived amidst a turbulent time. Mr. Assad's wife, who had been battling cancer, died a year later at 38. Assad returned to Brazil with her brother.
In Rio de Janeiro, between 1995-1997, Assad acted as a pianist, arranger and keyboardist on several musicals including Tá na Hora (by playwright Lucia Coelho), A Estrela Menina (by Joaquim de Paula) and Doidas Folias by playwright and composer Tim Rescala. Though passionate about music, she struggled with the decision to pursue an academic degree, due to the limited prospects in the industry in Brazil. As she prepared to study for the entry college exams majoring in marine biology, her father Sergio had met astro physicist Angela Olinto, and moved to Chicago. A year later, Assad was given the opportunity to study film scoring at the Berklee College of Music, leaving Brazil in 1998.