Purahei Trio
Purahéi Trio is an ensemble that brings together music and musicians from the borderlands of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil.
Drawing from a rich blend of musical influences—including jazz, classical music, Argentine and Paraguayan folklore, and Brazilian popular music—while maintaining a solid foundation in musical genres, forms, and rhythms, the trio’s creative work results in a chamber music sound that weaves together traditional and contemporary themes from the music of these regions.
Maiara Moraes is a flutist and composer. Although she was born in Foz do Iguaçu, a border city between Paraguay and Brazil, her music training began in Florianópolis, the city where she grew up. She studied at the Tatui Conservatory, EMESP (São Paulo Municipal School), with private teachers in Buenos Aires and São Paulo.
Maiara has always focused on the study of Latin American popular music, especially Brazilian popular music, with an emphasis on interpretation and improvisation within these genres. She is a member of Orquestra Mundana Refugi and the Gaia Petrelli Big Band, with which she has toured extensively across Brazil.
She leads her own band, the Maiara Moraes Quartet, where she performs her original compositions as well as works by acclaimed Brazilian flutists. The ensemble features pianist Salomão Soares, drummer Pedro Henning, and bassist Marcos Paiva. Maiara has recorded two albums: Nós and Cabeça de Vento (the latter under the musical direction of Gaia Wilmer and released by the Blaxtream label). Both albums have been presented at some of Brazil's most renowned music venues, including Sesc Instrumental and Sesc Pinheiros.
In addition to her own projects, Maiara collaborates with various groups in genres such as forró, samba, choro, and Brazilian instrumental music. She also holds a Master's Degree in Music from UNICAMP, where, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Rafael dos Santos, she conducted research on the flutist Nicolino Copia, known as Copinha, who passed away in 1984.
Romy Martínez, PhD, is a multilingual singer, ethnomusicologist, composer, cultural communicator and the founder of Purahéi Trio.
Born in Ciudad del Este (Alto Paraná, Paraguay), her music career and academic training span Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. She is proficient in Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Guaraní, the indigenous second official language of her country of birth. She is currently learning Dutch. Romy develops artistic and research projects involving cultures, languages and music genres from different nationalities and regions, particularly those that interconnect the diversity of the Southern Cone of Latin America to Europe.
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She has worked and collaborated with artists such as Carlinhos Antunes and Orquestra Mundana, Willy González, Alegre Corrêa, Badi Assad, Juan Falú, Rudi Flores, and Néstor Acuña, among many others. Romy holds a doctorate in Ethnomusicology from the Music Department of Royal Holloway University of London, a master’s degree from the Latin American Integration Postgraduate Program (PROLAM/USP) at the University of São Paulo (2018), where she researched the music that connects Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. She also holds a bachelor's degree in music education from UDESC (2008) and specialised in Tango and Folklore at the Manuel de Falla Conservatory in Buenos Aires, where she lived between 2011 and 2014.
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As a BECAL Paraguay scholarship holder, her doctoral research focused on the Guarani-Spanish bilingualism in communication and in Paraguayan popular song. Currently, she is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University College, The Hague, where she examines plurilingualism and music from a cultural diplomacy perspective.
Chungo Roy is a pianist, arranger, and composer, born in Posadas (Misiones, Argentina), a border city with Paraguay.
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He lived in Buenos Aires from 1999 to 2018, where he performed alongside some of the most prominent musicians in the Buenos Aires and Montevideo music scenes, such as Rubén Rada, Pipi Piazzolla, Ramiro Flores, and Osvaldo Fatorusso. He has also played as a keyboardist, arranger, and composer with the Uruguayan bassist Daniel Maza's quintet, as well as with Matías Méndez’s group. In addition, he leads his own music project as a pianist and composer, collaborating with Ezequiel Canteros, Andrés Pellican, and Pablo González.
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In 2015, Chungo Roy obtained his degree in Argentine Popular Music from the graduate programme at San Martín University (UNSAM) in Buenos Aires, which was led by Juan Falú and Lilián Saba. He specialised in diverse styles, both urban and folkloric, including tango, chacarera, gato, zamba, milonga, and music from the Litoral region (the Argentine border area with Paraguay).
His musical training draws from a wide range of influences, including Argentine folklore, jazz, and classical music. His creative work seeks to expand traditional styles—along with their harmonies and melodies—by introducing new sonorities into this music.
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Currently based in his hometown, Posadas, Chungo Roy performs as a pianist and music educator. He lectures on Argentine and Paraguayan popular music and develops specific teaching methods that approach the study of piano through these genres, rhythms, and forms.