LATEST REVIEWS
7 Pomegranate Seeds
Numérica (NUM 1206)
TIAGO CABRITA
“Seven Pomegranate Seeds, in-between gestures and Timbre”
Sara Carvalho (1970) has published, under the Numérica label, a CD with her works entitled “Seven Pomegranate Seeds”. Contrary to what the title may perhaps suggest, “Seven Pomegranate Seeds” does not consist of seven parts or movements. These pieces are actually seven different works – and, indeed, from relatively distinct periods. For example, “Blows Hot and Cold”, for string quartet, dates back to 1996 and it was later revised in 1997. Other illustrations are provided by “Solos IV”, for soprano (2000), as well as other more recent pieces, written between 2006 and 2009.
September 18th-23rd, 2012
Belém Arts Centre
TIAGO CABRITA
“Three Nights at the CCB - between Homages and New Music”
The first three days of the Música Viva 2012 Festival were rich in the diversity of proposals and presented aesthetics, having pluralism as the motto.
Música Viva 2012 Festival - Giving Voice!
September 18th-23rd, 2012
Belém Arts Centre
On September 22nd and 23rd I went to the Belém Arts Centre to see two performances of the Música Viva Festival. The first one told a story of a “water droplet”; the second one was saying: “Ce désert est faux”. And in fact, I was irrigated with multiple threads of creative imagination, awakening the seeds of life, which the daily routine, the political disgust or the professional annoyance, tend to dry out.
Sérgio Azevedo, “Erasing Mahler”
September 29th, 2012
“A Mahler Appetizer that Lacks Seasoning”
The Gala Concert of the Young Musicians Award (Prémio Jovens Músicos), which took place on September 29th at the Grand Auditorium of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, was an opportunity to listen to the première performance of the new work for orchestra by Sérgio Azevedo, “Erasing Mahler”, composed in response to a commission of the Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture. The event, whose 26thedition took place this year, was included in the 50th Anniversary of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, which under the baton of Joana Carneiro also performed the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra by William Walton, with the participation of Ricardo João Cabral Neves Gaspar, Young Musician of the Year, winner of the Young Musicians Award in the A Category (soloists), as well as the Sinfonietta – Homage to Haydn, by Fernando Lopes-Graça.
Vasco Mendonça, “Group Together, avoid speech”
October 17th and 19th, 2012
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
“Group Together, avoid speech”
Commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for the 50th anniversary of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the new orchestral work by Vasco Mendonça (Porto 1977), “Group Together, avoid speech” was premiered on October 17th and 19th 2012.
October 1st-10th, 2012
Goethe-Institut, Lisbon
“Música Viva 2012 at the Goethe-Institut”
Two concerts at the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon, on October 8 and 10, concluded the Música Viva 2012 Festival – Giving Voice!
November 17 and 27, 2012
Casa da Música
“Four Premieres, Three Composers, Two Generations”
At two concerts of its most recent programming (November 17 and 27) the Casa da Música presented 4 premiere performances of works by Portuguese composers, all of them, in fact, commissioned by the same institution. At the first concert the Porto Symphonic Orchestra Casa da Música, conducted by Andrew Grams gave us “Non"sense%)8$messages#_! (for a nonsense reality)” by Igor C. Silva and “Imagens Sonoras” by Filipe Pires; at the second one could listen to “from underground_03” by Igor C. Silva and the Triplo Concerto Grosso by Álvaro Salazar, performed by the Remix Ensemble under the baton of Peter Rundel.
January 12, 2013
Teatro Académico Gil Vicente
Not only Lisbon and Porto but also Coimbra is an important cultural centre, including for new music, whose example was without any doubt the concert, which took place on January 12 at the Gil Vicente Academic Theatre, under the title “Do Virtuosismo Pianístico de Liszt à Multi(n)disciplina do Século XXI” (“From Liszt’s Pianistic Virtuosity to the Multi(n)discipline of the 21st Century”).
