Walter Smetak

Born in Zurich in 1913 to Czech parents, Walter Smetak trained as a cellist in Europe and arrived in Brazil in 1937 to play in an orchestra in Porto Alegre. He performed on radio, at parties and on recordings in Rio and São Paulo, including with Carmen Miranda. In 1957, at Koellreuter’s invitation, he joined the Universidade Federal da Bahia, where he built more than one hundred instruments known as plásticas sonoras. Gil, Tom Zé and Marco Antônio Guimarães, of Uakti, passed through his workshop, and Caetano mentioned him in Épico. The LP Smetak, produced by Caetano and Roberto Santana, was released in 1974 according to MusicBrainz and Wikipedia (Cravo Albin lists 1975). He died in Salvador in 1984.