In the United States, Sérgio and Odair were hosted by different families in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and for the first time were far from their parents. Each experienced, in his own way, the challenge of communicating and adapting to American families. Sérgio attended Pioneer High, while Odair was a student at Slauson Junior High.
At Pioneer High, the president of the music department, Robert Pratt, invited them to perform for the students. Since verbal communication would be difficult—they didn’t speak English— music became their form of expression. They realized how it could overcome any language barrier.
Next, Mazo took them from Ann Arbor to New York, where they performed for the city’s Guitar Society in a series of concerts organized by Augustine Strings. In the audience were Rose Augustine, founder of the company; the young guitarist Manuel Barrueco, who had performed in the same series the month before; guitarist Alice Artz; and the remarkable Amazonian guitarist and singer Olga Coelho, who decades earlier had enjoyed major success in the United States.
