Silentium (2021), for accordion and ensemble

Solo cello piece.
Recorded by Veronika Voetmann
Performed by Éric-Maria Couturier

To my grandmother, Alice.

If there's a Heaven... (2022), for solo 'cello

L'Innocence (2024), for flutes and violoncello

Solo flute piece.
Performed by: Inês Paiva

Monólogo I (2019), for solo flute

Gonçalo Rodrigues began his studies in composition at the School of Arts, University of Évora, and after completing his degree he entered his master's degree in composition at Musikhögskolan i Malmö in Sweden. He completed his master's degree in June 2023 and is currently enrolled in a second master's degree. His studies in Portugal with Christopher Bochmann and Hugo Ribeiro notably influenced his musical style, more specifically his serialist techniques. However, his more recent studies with Bent Sørensen and Staffan Storm have revealed in his music a more authentic personality and form as well as a passion for dense and suffocating textures with melancholic melodies.
His portfolio mainly includes solo pieces and chamber music. However, he has ventured more into the orchestral world with pieces such as Butterflies, and Le fardeau de Fernando. In 2021 he was awarded a prize in the Folefest composition competition for accordion and ensemble.
His musical narrative has been changing considerably and can now be characterized as a serialist approach with a persistence of organic textures and severe contrasts. His pieces manage to achieve an almost wandering state but awake to the world like a perspective from a dream, a dream that takes the audience on a literary journey. Feelings of nostalgia and melancholy are dispersed throughout his music in a continuity disturbed by moments of deep ecstasy and exaltation.
It is also essential to mention the evident presence of microtonality and polyrhythms, the influence that these characteristics bring is undeniable thus, creating a translucent tonality in a certain way ghostly and intoxicating. The rhythmic sensation is primary during the narrative, hence preferring to sometimes opt for sections without a beat, therefore deviating from the rule and freeing the concrete sensations of the music from its usual compositional norm.

Gonçalo A. Rodrigues - Composer

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