Acari Records: Brazil's First Choro Label

Introduction

Acari Records was the first Brazilian label devoted exclusively to choro. Created in the late 1990s by Luciana Rabello and Maurício Carrilho, it was born tied to the same group of musicians and researchers who would go on to create the Escola Portátil de Música and the Casa do Choro.

More than a market label, Acari always worked as part of a larger project of research, teaching and preservation of choro. Its work brings together the recording of great masters, the recovery of historical composers, the launch of new generations, and the production of scores and research material — which made it a reference for musicians, students and researchers of the genre.

History and Founding

Acari was conceived between 1998 and 1999 and began operating commercially in 2000, when it released its first albums. The goal was clear: to fill a gap in the Brazilian recording market, which offered very little space for recordings dedicated to choro.

From the start, the label used the internet as a showcase and point of sale. In 2000, the first three CDs were already being sold through the acari.com.br website and in shops in the capital cities; according to Luciana Rabello, the page received 48,000 visits in two months and made possible sales to Japan, Norway and Canada.

This tie to institutions is an essential part of its story. Acari grew alongside the Casa do Choro and the Escola Portátil de Música and, later, came to host Rádio Acari Records, as well as documentaries and a research archive. It was not, therefore, merely a label, but one piece of a larger system of memory, teaching and performance.

Editorial Approach

Acari's approach combines, in an articulated way, four fronts: recording masters of the velha guarda (the oldest generation of choro) performing their own work, recovering historical composers, recording new chorões, and producing musical documentation.

This blend of memory, older repertoire and contemporary creation is the label's most constant trait. Rather than simply reissuing classics, the label invested in little-recorded women composers, in authors from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and in entire box sets born of repertoire research.

Main Projects

Mulheres do Choro (2001): an anthology dedicated to women composers of the genre, with a detailed biographical booklet, which helped broaden women's visibility in the history of choro.

Princípios do Choro: one of the label's most ambitious initiatives, with 15 CDs and 5 score notebooks produced in partnership with Biscoito Fino and EdUERJ. The series was reissued digitally in 2020.

Joaquim Callado – O Pai dos Chorões (2004): a box set with 5 CDs and a book dedicated to the surviving work of Joaquim Callado, one of the founding figures of choro.

Choro Carioca: Música do Brasil (2006–2007): a 9-CD box set with works by 74 chorões from various regions of the country, born of the Inventário do Repertório do Choro and revealing the genre's national scope.

8 Com (2013–2014): a series in which Maurício Carrilho engages musically with different guests of Brazilian music.

Selected Discography

The full catalog gathers more than 80 titles, according to surveys tied to the Casa do Choro. The selection below highlights milestones between 1999 and 2026.

Catalog Artists

At the center of the label are its founders: Luciana Rabello, also a performer and producer, and Maurício Carrilho, composer, arranger and curator of much of the label's output. Around them passed masters and performers such as Álvaro Carrilho, Leonardo Miranda, Índio do Cavaquinho, Pedro Amorim and Nailor Proveta.

A reference figure of the catalog is Raphael Rabello, present on albums such as Mestre Capiba and Todas as Canções and honored in the tribute Um Abraço no Raphael Rabello – 50 Anos. The label also features groups such as Camerata Brasilis, Regional Carioca and Furiosa Portátil, as well as recent artists such as Paulo Aragão and Renato Martins.

Digital Presence

Today Acari's catalog is on the main platforms — Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music and Tidal — part of it distributed by Nikita and indexed on databases such as MusicBrainz. From 2020 onward, the Casa do Choro also began to offer Rádio Acari Records.

The old in-house website, however, ceased to function as an active portal. The label's current presence is concentrated on the streaming platforms and within the institutional ecosystem of the Casa do Choro.

Reception and Partnerships

Much of Acari's recognition comes directly from its albums. Choro Ímpar, by Maurício Carrilho, was praised for the idea of composing choros in odd meters without sounding overly cerebral; Candeia Branca, by Luciana Rabello, was received as a fine work of samba de regional (the typical choro ensemble), for its vocals and its natural dialogue with the language of choro and samba. The album O Lamento do Samba, released by Acari / Quelé / Biscoito Fino, is connected to Paulo César Pinheiro's recognition with the 2003 Prêmio Shell.

The partnerships help explain the label's reach. The Princípios do Choro series came out with Biscoito Fino and EdUERJ; the box set Choro Carioca: Música do Brasil was sponsored by Petrobras; and the Quelé imprint was born from the union of Acari and Biscoito Fino, on projects such as O Lamento do Samba.

Importance for Choro

Acari emerged to fill a void — there was a lack of labels dedicated to choro — but it went far beyond that. It helped transform choro from a remembered repertoire into one that is researched, recorded, edited and taught. Collections such as Princípios do Choro and Choro Carioca: Música do Brasil are today an important part of the genre's inventory.

Its greatest legacy is not just the number of albums, but the bridge it built between memory, research, scores, teaching and recording. More than a label, Acari Records is one of the engines that keep choro alive in the twenty-first century.

Sources

• Instituto Casa do Choro — Archive and entries on Luciana Rabello and Maurício Carrilho, with records of the label's founding, artistic direction and collections (Princípios do Choro, Choro Carioca: Música do Brasil, Inventário do Repertório do Choro). Available at: casadochoro.com.br
• Itaú Cultural — Entry on Acari Records, with the label's institutional definition.
• Discografia Brasileira (Instituto Moreira Salles) — The label's page; base for the discography indexed between 1999 and 2019.
• MusicBrainz — Indexing of releases and digital reissues, including 2026 titles and links to the streaming platforms.
• Cliquemusic — 2000 article on the first releases, the editorial approach and online sales.