She has played with many Brazilian musicians and singers, such as Alaide Costa, Nana Caymmi, Filo Machado, Nelson Ayres, Arismar do EspÃrito Santo, Elton Medeiros, Mozar Terra, Eduardo Gudin, Luis Carlos Borges, Nico Assumpçao, Guilherme Vergueiro, Bocato, Michel Freidenson, Edson Alves, Hermeto Pascoal, Joyce, Arrigo Barnabe, Itibere Zwarg, Cauby Peixoto, and others, at recording sections and shows.
Her first CD, “Ninhal†(meaning the collective of birds nests), is still very well received by public and critic and some of the songs, specially “Vatapa†have been recorded already in Japan, German, Italy, USA and by various artists in Brazil.
Fully recognized as a very creative composer, some of her pieces are now being played by flutists in concerts in Europe and USA. In Sept 98 she played at Miami University and the Blue Note in NY, as a special guest of Teco Cardoso, and recorded her second album - “Quintetoâ€, featuring her duo with sax and flute player Teco Cardoso, released in 99.
In 2005 released two albuns with trombonist Bocato – “Brazilian Song Anthology – vol.1 and vol.2†featuring the most beautiful balads of Brazilian composers such as Nelson Cavaquinho, Ary Barroso, Tom Jobim, Lupicinio Rodrigues and others. This album was extremely well received by critics and public and the vol.2 is highly expected for the second semester.
Touring in Europe in 2006, she co-produced with pianist Thomas Clausen an CD - "Waterbikes" that is being released in Danmark and Brazil, featuring Lea’s an Thomas’s compositions, with Teco Cardoso, Fernando Demarco (bass) and Afonso Correa (drums and percussion).
As a producer of Brazilian Contemporary Instrumental Music through Maritaca (www.maritaca.art.br) - her label company – she has produced more than thirty CDs – featuring names like Arismar do Espirito Santo, Filo Machado, Bocato, Vinicius Dorin, Thiago Espirito Santo, Silvia Goes, Tibo Delor, Edu Ribeiro, Mane Silveira, Teco Cardoso, Guello, Naylor “Proveta†Azevedo, Laercio de Freitas, Heloisa Fernandes and many others.
“The appearance of Lea Freire in the musical scenery is more than a special happening. She was known already as an exceptional flute player; but as a composer she excels herself. She is one of the most complete musicians I know and stands in the front line of the most creative music that is happening in Brazil today, together with Guinga, Edu Lobo and other well known composers.†- Joyce
"Few times in my life I’ve listened to such good music, created for somebody of my time."
Benjamim Taubkin, by e-mail - November - 2006
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The Critic about Cartas BrasileirasContaining some startling and original music performed with great authority and with all the harmonic and rhythmic complexities expertly negotiated, Léa Freire’s new CD, Cartas Brasileiras, comes over richly and seductively to deliver a scintillating dreamscape that commemorates 10 years of the Maritaca record label as well as the 50th birthday of its founder, Léa Freire.A leading light in Brazilian music, Freire continues to break down musical barriers, moving freely between jazz, popular, and classical music. She is an inventive musician who has distinguished herself as a daring flautist, arranger, and composer. Cartas Brasileiras represents her writing at its most impressionistic and inspired. The first thing that strikes you about this recording is the orchestral warmth radiating throughout. Freire brings to the orchestra’s embroidery a mesmerizing combination of luminous beauty and reserved expressiveness, and with this, new hope that Brazil, a country already rich in woodwind and brass traditions, will achieve a uniquely orchestral voice for its stringed instruments (Bruce Gilmann - Brazil Magazzine in LA)
One of the more dear and admired artists of Sao Paulo, flutist Lea Freire more an more demonstrates why she is also considered among the great contemporary Brazilian composers. Her classical formatiion is noted in the perfect finishing of her sonorous craftwork. Her involvement with the diverse forms of Brazilian popular music completes the recipy: a delicate sonorous symbiosis that magnificently expresses in the diverse tracks of the CD Cartas Brasileiras (Brazilian Letters - Maritaca, 2007). Her precious arrangements with trombonist Bocato,Anthology of Brazilian Songs, vol. 1 and 2, launched in 2005, are between the century best productions in Brazilian instrumental music. Her compositions sound, many times, as songs without words, with sophisticated melodies that, at the same time, you can whistle. But the richness of her writing also spreads in choros, waltzes, jazzy or symphonic touches, mixed genders, undefinable inventions where absolute beauty reigns.Lea is decisively stablishing herself as inheritor of the great Brazilian tradition that comes from Nazareth, and passes through Villa-Lobos and Tom Jobim, attentive to all the sources. Of each one of these the composer seems to have extracted the sum. Inspiration, talent and an enormous capacity to agregate excellent musicians around her, constructing a collective result where her creation arises, exuberant. Léa is a music lesson! (Daniel Brazil - Magazine Brazilian Music (online) - July 2007)