Stephanie Borgani: Mímica: Música para Quatro Instrumentos

For a jazz singer to debut with a quartet of unaccompanied voices and saxophones in a program of new music is an audacious move. But on Mímica: Música para Quatro Instrumentos (Mimicry: Music for Four Instruments), Stephanie Borgani wraps her artistic assertiveness in the subtle sounds of her ensemble, with timbres and textures that are transparent and light, creating a refreshing contrast to the typical lead-plus-rhythm jazz quartet.

There is a comparable aesthetic duality in the work of some of Borgani's musical heroes. Sara Serpa's cool nonconformity, for example (Sara Serpa & Matt Mitchell: End of Something, Obliquity, 2025). She also names Miguel Zenon with Spektral Quartet (Yo Soy La Tradicion, Miel Music, 2018), PRISM Quartet (Dissolve, XAS, 2026), and Lea Freire (Vento em Madeira, Maritaca, 2011). It is not hard to find parallels. Bold compositional choices are articulated in chamber-jazz ensembles, sound environments that tend to be active rhythmically and melodically, yet diaphanous.

Borgani's inventive compositions are a mix of written and improvised material. The scores employ an SATB setup (soprano voice, alto voice, alto sax, tenor sax). The vocal lines are wordless and the textures are diverse.

To begin at the end, the program culminates with "Quieto, Por Favor" (Quiet, Please), a confection that combines baroque precision with jazz freedom. For a quick blow-by-blow, voice one (Borgani) sings a running eighth-note theme at the top, in unison with alto sax (Lucas Sales). After eight bars, voice two (Marina Marchi) and tenor sax (Marlon Cordeiro) join in improvised counterpoint as the opening melody repeats. The texture thickens in the 17th bar as both saxophones momentarily assume the theme while voice two continues to improvise and voice one moves on to a contrasting legato melody. Alto hands the melody off to tenor three bars later, as alto plays in canon with voice one's legato theme. A relatively long composed developmental section ensues, with tenor maintaining the primary melody as the themes entwine and new contrapuntal material is added. This culminates with an open collective improvisation based on an alternating two-bar harmony, followed by a coda, which serves as a recapitulation of sorts, ending with a written coda. The four minutes are delightfully jam-packed.

 "Colorida" (Colorful), the penultimate track, contains a similar mix of composed contrapuntal backgrounds and solo sections, this time with improvisations over more jazz-like forms in that the soloists (Sales and Borgani) each improvise over 32-ish bar segments in a mixed meter of sevens and threes. The scores are meticulous and substantial (14 pages for "Colorida," nine for "Quieto").

On the other hand, "Coro" (Choir), track six, is entirely composed (as is "Trave" [Goalpost], track four), and fills just three pages. "Coro" may remind some listeners of early Swingle Singers, in their Jazz Sébastien Bach period (Philips, 1963); "Aria" from Suite No. 3 in D.

Call her music third stream if you like (she earned her master's degree from New England Conservatory), although música instrumental brasileira (Brazilian instrumental music) might be more apt, since she is based in São Paulo and continues to do post-graduate work at the Escola de Música do Estado de São Paulo Tom Jobim (EMESP), studying composition with Tiago Costa, Rodrigo Lima, and Nelson Ayres. However you choose to categorize Mímica, the album distinguishes Borgani as an emerging composer-performer with a fresh, creative voice. She is one to watch.