WNMD 2025 · CONCERTS 15 & 16
Cinema for the Ear #1 / Cinema para os ouvidos #1
04-06-2025 · 14h00 to 16h30
O’culto da Ajuda
Lisbon
Bilheteira · Box Office (O’culto)
MISO MUSIC PORTUGAL’S LOUDSPEAKER ORCHESTRA
CONCERT 15
ANTÓNIO DE SOUSA DIAS (Portugal, 1959)
A Dama e o Unicórnio – Paisagem (2018), 8’
FILIPE ESTEVES (Portugal, 1978)
[new work] (2024–2025), 8’ WP
GILLES GOBEIL (Canada, 1954)
Un cercle hors de l'arbre (2014–2015), 10’
individual submission
MANUELLA BLACKBURN (UK, 1984)
Home Truths (2023), 7’
Individual submission
NATASHA BARRETT (UK, 1972)
Impossible Moments from Venice 3 / The Other Side of the Lagoon (2023), 10’
ISCM Norwegian section
CONCERT 16
ANTÓNIO FERREIRA (Portugal, 1962)
Escape Mechanism (2025), 11’ WP
ÂNGELA LOPES (Portugal, 1972)
Reciclo Recírculos – em forma de sanza (2019), 10’
ANNETTE VANDE GORNE (Belgium, 1946)
Vox Alia IV: Vox Populi (2023), 10’
individual submission
PANAYIOTIS KOKORAS (Greece, 1974)
Useless Box (2023), 13’
Stephen F. Austin State University
YOUNGJAE CHO (South Korea, 1990) YCA
Mirrored: ceilings, floors, walls (2023), 9’
individual submission
YCA · Young Composers Award candidate
WP · world premiere
PROGRAMME NOTES
ANTÓNIO DE SOUSA DIAS (Portugal, 1959)
A Dama e o Unicórnio – Paisagem (2018)
— [Programme notes available soon]
FILIPE ESTEVES (Portugal, 1978)
[new work] (2024–2025)
— [Programme notes available soon]
GILLES GOBEIL (Canada, 1954)
Un cercle hors de l’arbre (2014–2015), for fixed media (stereo)
individual submission
— To Flo Menezes. Inspired freely by the film La Jetée (1962) by Chris Marker (1921-2012). This movie tells the story of the survivors of a nuclear cataclysm where both the victors and the defeated are trapped underground due to deadly radiation. It gives food for thought in these uncertain times. Where do we stand today? And what if this scenario were prophetic? Un cercle hors de l’arbre was realized in the studios of PANaroma in São Paulo (Brazil). Acknowledgements go to the Canadian Council for the Arts (CCA) for support. Un cercle hors de l’arbre was awarded at the First Prize at the Concorso Internazionale de Composizione Città di Udine (Italy, 2023); the First Prize ex æquo in the C Category (50 years and older) at the 12th Biennial Acousmatic Composition competition Métamorphoses (Belgium, 2022); and the Second Prize at the 8th Destellos Electroacoustic Composition Competition (Argentina, 2015).
MANUELLA BLACKBURN (UK, 1984)
Home Truths (2023), for fixed media (stereo)
individual submission
— Interruptions dominate this composition, acting as pauses, abrupt stops, moments cut short and held breaths. These moments represent the many interruptions experienced in my daily life, in work, activities and composing. Interruptions are temporal states where continuity is ceased but then resumed or returned to after the interrupting event is over. In this work, interruptions are positioned as the main event; acting as focal points and instances to explore the creative potential of these typically unwanted occurrences. There are many different types of interruptions constructed throughout the composition. These show the different outcomes between successful versus unsuccessful interruptions, those that form segues to those that forcefully threaten and break down sound’s continuous presence. This creative experimentation with many interruptions is set within the context of home life and home sounds. These sounds tell a story, imitating interruptions to flow, being in the home for extended periods and all this entails.
NATASHA BARRETT (UK, 1972)
Impossible Moments from Venice 3 / The Other Side of the Lagoon (2023)
ISCM Norwegian section
— The Other Side of the Lagoon is the third composition in the Impossible Moments from Venice series. With one foot in reality, these compositions take the listener to a fictional location beyond the reach, as if in a dream state that nevertheless appears to be totally real. The watery reality of Venice, sinking into the muddy lagoon and threatened by the rising Adriatic, is counterpointed by curious sounds we rarely hear. These sounds are revealed by advanced signal processing methods that I developed during the Reconfiguring the Landscape artistic research project, aimed at exploring interesting features of the urban noise we are party to. The work draws on the sound of Venice before the tourists awaken, counterpointed by iron piers rolling on the waves, motorboats resonating across the Lagoon, and a sense decadence sitting uneasily against the reality of the rising tides.
ANTÓNIO FERREIRA (Portugal, 1962)
Escape Mechanism (2025) WP
— This is an acousmatic composition with all the expected aesthetic trappings: abstract sounds contrasted/ mingled with treated recorded sounds, in a continuous swirl of movement pointing to a possible escape from a troubled world… The continuous movement is realised by using small sounds, particles, which are sometimes source-recognizable and whose movement is achieved by a combination of energy (level) and frequency content (timbre) panning (with a sprinkle of Doppler shift). That means that the intrinsic sonic characteristics of the material guide the movement. Material with variable energy and frequency content was added or subtracted as desired to control the degree of spatial activity. Direct control of panning, eg. via envelopes was avoided. The work was originally conceived and mixed in Ambisonics 3o. There is some front dominance in the global perception of the space of the piece. This was intended.
ÂNGELA LOPES (Portugal, 1972), for fixed media (audio and video)
Reciclo Recírculos – em forma de sanza (2019), for fixed media (audio and video)
— Reciclo-Recírculos – em forma de sanza is an audiovisual piece. The piece was commissioned by the DME Festival to be premiered in the context of the third edition of the Culture and Sustainability Symposium at the Lisboa Incomum. This is a soundscape work built on the idea of sustainability. The keywords are “reuse” (an inactive computer) and “recycle” (sound materials that return to life – converting waste sound materials into potentially useful sounds). ‘Recírculos’ in the title symbolises the circular and repetitive character, as in a loop, and ‘em forma de sanza’ in the subtitle refers to the presence of the sound of the African instrument – sanza. The difficulty in the composition was reconciling different levels of attention: the rhythmic and untempered nature of some of the materials with the melodic and tonal characteristics of others. It was imperative to reconcile the irreconcilable, merge and orchestrate their differences. The video is by the artist Inês Tartaruga Água. She says, “The video work explores the visual fluidity of water, its eternal cycles, and its constant recycling. Shot with an old hi8 home recorder camera handed to me by a family member, the reusing of this obsolete tool against the contemporary ones permits noise and signal saturation, which, together with light, sculpt forms in the water, creating movements and visual rhythms that, through this magical water algorithm, casually synchronise with the musical composition.”
ANNETTE VANDE GORNE (Belgium, 1946)
Vox Alia IV: Vox Populi (2023), for fixed media (16 channels)
individual submission
— ...Vox Dei? This short work combines human choral voices when a ritual brings them together and unifies them: from children’s games and their cries to those of demonstrators protesting in the public space, or even those of babies, to the litany ritual of communal prayers. Close to the spirit of the Hörspiel, it affirms the necessity of sound recording as the work’s basis, and consequently plays with degrees of image recognition (iconic or their imprints), to communicate with the listener’s imagination. Its form is a succession of small, different tableaux, all linked to the other parts of Vox Alia. The work was produced in 16 channels at the Musiques & Recherches Métamorphoses d'Orphée multiphonic studio in 2023. First performance: at the inaugural concert of the AVdG foundation on November 29, 2023, at the Espace Senghor, Brussels.
PANAYIOTIS KOKORAS (Greece, 1974)
Useless Box (2023), for fixed media (audio and video)
Stephen F. Austin State University
— “The god Prometheus stole fire from heaven to give to the human race, which originally consisted only of men. To punish humanity, the other gods created the first woman, the beautiful Pandora. As a gift, Zeus gave her a box, which she was told never to open. However, as soon as he was out of sight she took off the lid, and out swarmed all the troubles of the world, never to be recaptured. Only Hope was left in the box, stuck under the lid. Anything that looks ordinary but may produce unpredictable harmful results can thus be called a Pandora's box.” Definition of “Pandora’s Box”. [Merriam-Webster]
The piece starts with the resonant knocking of a wooden box. At first, it sounds like an empty and useless box, but as it reveals its contents, it transforms from real to fantastical worlds, from Pandora’s box to Schrödinger's cat in a box thought experiment, and into places where the strange, the enigmatic, the amusing, the theatrical, and the terrifying all blend together, creating a story that is replete with vivid mental images and associations. Through a combination of spectromorphological and transcontextual manipulations, the sounds like emanating from the box take on a life of their own, becoming imbued with symbols, meanings, shapes, and forms. Each sound, from the eerie whistles to the booming thuds, has a distinct purpose and contributes to the piece in its own unique way. Useless Box both begins and ends with a quote from Entry of the Gladiators a military march composed by Julius Fučík in 1897. The box operates within a three-stage paradigm: Sense, Think, and Act. Equipped with an array of sensors including infrared, gyroscope, piezo, and switches, it transmits data to the Think part, which is a MaxMSP programme with machine listening capabilities. This component then controls the actuators, which make the third part, Act. Various physical computing and digital fabrication techniques were employed to fabricate the essential hardware for both sensors and actuators, which include a fan, pump, vape pen, motors, and lights.
YOUNGJAE CHO (South Korea, 1990) YCA
Mirrored: ceilings, floors, walls (2023)
individual submission
— I concretize what I experience in everyday life, for example, a night sky with different star constellations or countless coloured books on the bookshelf. In this piece, I also imagined a room where the walls are completely covered with mirrors. These many multidimensional mirrors have a fascinating effect. The images, which change depending on the vantage point, seem to relate to the resonance and the sonic environment. This work is intended to be presented in a dome of loudspeakers version (3D-Version) or any multi channel version (16 Channel and 8 Channel) in the concert hall.