WNMD 2025 · CONCERT 17
Whispers and Echoes / Sussurros e ecos
04-06-2025 · 18h00
São Luiz Teatro Municipal, Sala Bernardo Sassetti
Lisbon
Bilheteira · Box Bilheteira (São Luiz)
Komorebi Duo
KOMOREBI DUO
Camila Mandillo · soprano
João Casimiro Almeida · piano
ANTÓNIO PINHO VARGAS (Portugal, 1951)
A Maior Tortura (2006), 6’
EDUARDO LUÍS PATRIARCA (Portugal, 1970)
Livro dos Mantras em memória do Venerável Mestre Hsing Yun (2024), 6’
EVA AGUILAR (Portugal, 2002) YCA
[new work] (2024–2025), 10’
FÁTIMA FONTE (Portugal, 1983)
Cartas Portuguesas (2020), 6’
ISCM Portuguese section
ISABEL SOVERAL (Portugal, 1961)
Ciclo Shakespeare – Since Brass nor Stone (2007), 11’
DANIEL OSORIO (Chile, 1971)
Zikkus-P (2010), 9’
ISCM Chile section
JIM O’LEARY (Canada, 1971)
Susan Pennefather Gray (2014–2015), 8’
Individual submission
ROBERT MCINTYRE (Australia, 1998) YCA
A Sea Spray of Ash (2019), 4’
ISCM Australian section
YCA · ISCM Young Composers Award candidate
PROGRAMME NOTES
ANTÓNIO PINHO VARGAS (Portugal, 1951)
A Maior Tortura (2006), for mezzo-soprano and piano
— [Programme notes available soon]
EDUARDO LUÍS PATRIARCA (Portugal, 1970)
Livro dos Mantras em memória do Venerável Mestre Hsing Yun (2024), for voice and piano
— The Book of Mantras is part of a relatively long cycle, the Cycle of Books. Like all the other pieces in the cycle, it reflects on a particular aspect of Buddhism, especially the Mahayana branch, through the practices and teachings of Chinese, Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism. In the Book of Mantras, in addition to the concept of Mantra, melodic and textual formula, the specific practice of Shômyô singing (声明), developed in Japanese Zen Buddhism (direct heir to Chinese Ch'an), is applied, in which each member sings in their own tuning and with melismas improvised by themselves, which causes harmonic and contrapuntal processes of great complexity. This piece can have several versions, including electronics and oriental percussion instruments, as well as the possibility of overlapping several voices. The version used here is for solo voice. Everything that comes close to Shômyô is proposed for performance in a creative relationship between the composer and the performer.
EVA AGUILAR (Portugal, 2002) YCA
[new work] (2024–2025)
— [Programme notes available soon]
FÁTIMA FONTE (Portugal, 1983)
Cartas Portuguesas (2020), for female voice and piano
ISCM Portuguese section submission
— The text of this song comprises fragments from a collection of letters with the same name, Cartas Portuguesas (Portuguese Letters), written by a Portuguese nun (Mariana Alcoforado) in the 17th century. Following a short love affair with a French official and his departure to various missions at the service of the French king, Mariana wrote five passionate and confessional love letters. Starting with unconditional surrender to love and sensuality, the lack of mutuality inspires an increasingly bitter and hopeless tone. The fragments I chose to set revolve around writing as release – “I write more for myself than for you; I seek nothing but relief” – and the frustration with his confession of indifference – “I loathe your honesty. Why did you not leave me with my passion?” The music uses the Hindustani raag Basant and draws inspiration from ornaments used in Hindustani music.
ISABEL SOVERAL (Portugal, 1961)
Ciclo Shakespeare – Since Brass nor Stone (2007), for soprano and electronics
— In Since brass nor Stone... the proximity between the acoustic and the electronics world – so characteristic of the previous cycle - is defined by the landscape of the electronics that background and embraces the dramatic sense that Shakespeare down in the sonnet. The dialogue between the solo voice and the transformed recorded voice is always there creating a single sound matrix. The electronics create a sound field with a space and harmonic configuration complementary to that presented by the soprano part. The intersection points between electronics and the voice are frequent, marking the key moments of the formal geography of the piece. This piece went through several phases of composition. During the first phase, the nuclear material was worked up from the sonnet and its evolution was planned in a way that was still quite abstract. Before the development of musical discourse, my work passed by the decoding of "images" trapped in the memory of reading the sonnet, "remains that are crystallized". The emotional reading of the original text led me to a very concrete perception of a possible musical discourse taking into account the necessary mediation process between the dimensions of time and space. The material developed, essentially, through the expansion of its concrete musical characteristics, contributing, from the beginning, to the expressive quality or identity, which will be present in the final achievement of the work. In this case, the unity principle does not search a uper control; on the contrary, it tries to create nuclei, formants, which will manifest themselves differently as they interact with each other.
DANIEL OSORIO (Chile, 1971)
Zikkus-P (2010), for piano and electronics
ISCM Chile section
— Zikkus-P confronts the sikuri ensembles’ playing with two symbols of European musical tradition par excellence: the piano, the symbol of European high culture and individual performance, and electroacoustic music, the trademark of the European avant-garde. These elements are juxtaposed with the social significance of the sikuri’s collective music-making, which plays a fundamental role in shaping Andean sound aesthetics. The piece attempts to break the piano’s symbolism and limited tonal possibilities by dismantling its sound spectrum – on the one hand, via electronics and on the other, by striking its resonating body with various everyday objects. In this way, new types of sound spectra are generated, allowing the acoustic elements and aesthetic values of Andean music shine through.
JIM O’LEARY (Canada, 1971)
Susan Pennefather Gray (2014–2015), for soprano and piano
Individual submission
— Susan Pennefather Gray was commissioned for the PEI 2014 Sesquicentennial: celebrating the 150th anniversary of the meeting of the “Fathers of Confederation” in 1864 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Though her husband, Colonel John Hamilton Gray, was premier of PEI in 1864, I decided to focus my work on Susan Gray. I composed the music as if from her perspective; imagining that she was already quite ill at the time of the Charlottetown conference and unsure how much time she had left (she would eventually die on Nov. 12, 1866). Here was a woman at the centre of a seismic change in Canadian history, who was battling her illness while raising a family and supporting her husband’s political aspirations. The poem was chosen specifically for its stark religious imagery and sentiment: as if Susan Gray is talking directly to her God in her time of need.
ROBERT MCINTYRE (Australia, 1998) YCA
A Sea Spray of Ash (2019), for soprano and piano
ISCM Australian section
— A Sea Spray of Ash is work for solo soprano with minimal yet reverberant piano accompaniment, confronting the issue of environmental collapse, which poses a sobering threat to our existence. lt conveys a narrative of ash covering the shores, natural disasters, and a reminiscent moment of when the Earth was pure, right before a solemn caution to not silence its desperate plea for survival. This work was composed during and inspired by the emergence of the 2019 Global Climate Crisis Strikes. lt calls for further action, exponentially increasing in relevance as time passes on, while the urgency of the climate crises exacerbates.