Yamandu Costa

Yamandu Costa (Passo Fundo, January 24, 1980), sometimes misspelled Yamandú, is a Brazilian guitarist and composer. His main instrument is the violão de 7 cordas, the Brazilian seven-stringed nylon guitar.

Yamandu began to study guitar at age seven with his father, Algacir Costa, leader of the group Os Fronteiriços (The Frontiersmen) and mastered the instrument after studying with Lúcio Yanel, an Argentine virtuoso who lived in Brazil. At age fifteen, Yamandu began study Brazilian Southern folk music, Argentina and Uruguay.

Influenced by the music of Radamés Gnattali, he began to study the music of other Brazilians, such as Baden Powell de Aquino, Tom Jobim and Raphael Rabello.

At age seventeen he played in São Paulo for the first time at the Cultural Circuit Bank of Brazil which was produced by the Study Tone Brazil. Yamandu came to be recognized as the musician who revived Brazilian guitar music.

Yamandu's diverse execution styles include styles like chorinho, bossa nova, milonga, tango, samba and chamamé, making him difficult to categorize into a single genre.

Yamandu appeared in Mika Kaurismäki's 2005 documentary film Brasileirinho.