Descalça
for video, female voice, piano, viola and flute
The texts of this piece are taken from the cycle “Leonorana” (1965-1970) written by the Portuguese poet Ana Hatherly. This cycle consists of thirty-one variations on the following theme of a poem by Luís Vaz de Camões, from the 16th century:
Barefoot to the fountain she goes
Leonor through the greenery
Fair and not safe she goes.
Camões’ poem describes a girl – Leonor – walking to a fountain, more beautiful than beauty itself: “Such grace is poured upon her, / That beauty itself becomes more gracious;”. Ana Hatherly’s variations on the theme above take very different forms. The piece uses three of these variations, each one looking for Leonor in different ways – using scientific, philosophical or lyrical “explanations” – but without managing to overcome her intangibility.
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Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble
Voice: Camila Mandillo
Flute: Sílvia Cancela
Viola: Jorge Alves
Piano: João Casimiro Almeida
Stage direction: Joana Providência
Video: Unloop Creative Agency (Concept: Arina Zhumasheva and Helder da Rocha; Motion Design: Adrian Soto)
Festival Música Viva, O’culto da Ajuda (Lisbon)
05-05-2023
Cartas Portuguesas
for piano and female voice
Text: fragments from Cartas Portuguesas by Mariana Alcoforado (17th century).
Original text:
Escrevo mais para mim do que para ti; não procuro senão alívio.
Há já muito tempo que um oficial espera esta carta. Tencionava escrevê-la de forma a não te aborrecer, mas é tão incoerente que o melhor é acabá-la.
Detesto a sua franqueza. Porque me não deixou com a minha paixão? Não me chegava a desgraça de não ter conseguido de si o cuidado de me iludir? Era preciso não lhe poder perdoar?
Translation:
I write more for myself than for you; I seek nothing but relief.
An officer has been expecting this letter for a long time. I intended to write it so as not to upset you, but it is so incoherent that it is best to finish it.
I abhor your candour. Why did you not leave me with my passion? Was the disgrace of not getting from you the care to deceive me not enough? Was it necessary not to be able to forgive you?
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Voice: Filipa Portela
Piano: Gregor Forbes
Video: Adriana Romero
Actor: Bárbara Maciel
Audio recording: Estúdios Timbuktu, Lisbon
Video recording: Casa Andersen, Porto
January 2024
Bagatelas
for solo harp
The age of seft-improvement
for actor, piano and percussion
In an age where fetishised self-improvement and the myths of individual achievement are abundant, how do we take stock? How do we know when we have peaked? How do we tell when we have reached our potential? The music follows a frenetic libretto built from original text and self-improvement guides and gurus will guide the audience through the mind of someone who is nothing unless they are achieving. This is growth economics on the human scale. 3% more year on year will lead to collapse in no time at all. Exponentiality at its core, and capturing the essence of psychological overload and collapse, The Age of Self-Improvement will explore our moments of collapse. When all the demands on our time are stripped away, what does our mind do? Can we just be? Or are we addicts to busy?
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Piano: Ivelina Krasteva
Percussion: Engin Eskici
Librettist and Stage Consultant: Sam Redway Wells
Actor: Mayra Stergiou
Light: Hazuki Mogan
Mixed Feelings Concert at Milton Court Theatre, London
24-06-2022
The Fountain
for three female voices
This performance is the outcome of a research on Portuguese Traditional Music. The two video excerpts presented come from documentaries made by the ethnomusicologist Michel Giacometi in the 1960s and 1970s, in Portuguese villages.
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Fátima Fonte
Laura Polence
Magdalena Golebiowska
Composers’ Festival, Conservatory of Amsterdam, June 2012
Tiago Rosado
Coração acordeão
for soprano and piano
A song cycle commissioned by Miso Music Portugal for Duo Tágide, with live broadcast for Antena 2. Texts by Alexandre O’Neill.
Inonimado is the first song, with the following text:
se eu não fizer
assim (como hei-de
dizer?) amor
sim amor contigo
muitas (meudeus!) vezes
com preguicinhas boas
tolices ao ouvido
revoadas de beijos
repentes dentes
olhares pestanejados com carinho
oh
nem terei nome
serei “o coiso” “esse aí” o “como
é que ele se chama?”
o que dorme singelo
o que ninguém (ai ai) ama.
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Duo Tágide:
Soprano: Inês Simões
Piano: Daniel Godinho
O’culto da Ajuda (Lisboa)
October 2019
