Contemporay Mixed Music

Carlos Caires | Instante
Orquestra Gulbenkian | Dir. Pedro Neves

Prémio Jovens Músicos 25 Anos
Concerto de Gala PJM 2011
RTP

Photo by Ryan Stefan on Unsplash
Date 2012
Lisbon
Portugal

Instante (2011), para orquestra

Casa da Música/Centro Pompidou-IRCAM, 2010; Remix Ensemble , direcção musical de Peter Rundel.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

All-In-One (2010)

Monika Streitová - Flute
Pedro Rodrigues - Guitar

SAH for Flute Guitar and Electronics (2012)

Angel Rock was inspired in Berio’s treatment of folk material and its adaptation to a contemporary setup, as he did in works like Coro or Folksongs.
This piece gets its sound influences in “hard rock” and “progressive rock” music of the eighties. The explosive gestures, contrasting with high pitched sustained notes, try to emulate in my own personal language, some memories I still have in my mind, from those times.
The electronics are used as an expansion of the instruments, acting like a “ghost” of the instrumental gestures. Those “ghost” sounds somehow “distort” the pure instrumental sounds, in the same way my recollections of the rock sounds from the eighties are “distorted” in my memory, because of thirty years of distance.
Angel Rock was commissioned by the Giga-Hertz Award and composed at the SWR studio in Freiburg.

Angel Rock

This piece is a little homage to a certain type of rock music from the seventies, which was part of my youth experiences, and today I still listen to some of it with great pleasure. On the Rocks does not attempt to establish a direct structural, timbrical, or rhythmical relationship with the music of those years, but tries only to suggest the kind of ‘symphonic’ texture that was part of that sound universe.

On The Rocks

In a labyrinth there are many paths and passages. They all look similar, but they are all different. One person can remember a place he was before, but he is never sure that he will return to that same place, and even if he does return, there will always be a doubt if it is really the same place he was before. And many times, when a person thinks he found the exit of the labirynth, he actually returns to the place where he started his journey.
In this piece the musical gestures try to describe this process. The dialogs between the tape and the instruments are always different, but they always remind gestures that appeared before in the piece, so that there is an illusion of repetition, and variation.
This piece was commissioned by Gulbenkian Foundation, and received the 1st Prize in the Bourges 2002 Competition.

Labirinto

Titanium belongs to a group of four works that are inspired by elements of nature. Each of these pieces is related to the characteristics of the elements by which it is inspired. 
Titanium is a bright metal with low density and high strength and ductility. It is also corrosion resistant and has high temperature resistance. Its name is inspired by the Titans of Greek mythology.

Titanium

Shîyr means “Song”. 
Shîr Hashirim means “Song of songs”.
These are the first words of the sacred text written by Solomon, in the Old Testament. It has been poetically and theologically interpreted throughout the centuries in many different ways. The most common ones are the Christian official interpretation that considers it as an allegory of the love between the Church (the wife) and God (the husband), or the Jewish interpretation as the love between Israel and God. But also there is a possible interpretation of this text as a real love song between husband and wife, containing simultaneously all the sacred and sensual implications that marriage and life together must have.
This piece does not attempt to induce any of these interpretations on the listener, but tries to leave an open space for the listener. It is the wish of the author that a religious person may hear in it the spirituality of the sacred relation, but at the same time an agnostic person may see in it the sensual and almost erotic implications of the text.

Text:
Excerpts from the book Song of Songs from Salomon (Old Testament)

Chapter 1, v. 1, 2
Osculetur me osculo oris sui quia meliora sunt ubera tua vino. 
Fraglantia unguentis optimis oleum effusum nomen tuum ideo adulescentulae dilexerunt te.

Chapter 5, v. 5, 6, 8
Surrexi ut aperirem dilecto meo manus meae stillaverunt murra digiti mei pleni murra probatissima pessulum ostii. 
Aperui dilecto meo at ille declinaverat atque transierat anima mea liquefacta est. Ut locutus est quaesivi et non inveni, illum vocavi et non respondit mihi 

Adiuro vos filiae Hierusalem si inveneritis dilectum meum ut nuntietis ei quia amore langueo 

Chapter 7, v. 11-13
Veni dilecte mi egrediamur in agrum commoremur in villis. Mane surgamus ad vineas videamus si floruit vinea si flores fructus parturiunt si floruerunt mala punica ibi dabo tibi ubera mea. Mandragorae dederunt odorem in portis nostris omnia poma nova et vetera dilecte mi servavi tibi.

Translation:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.

I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock.
I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.
Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.
The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

Shiyr

Le Voyage des Sons

I - Mahakala Sadhana (electronic music)
II - Alap-jor-jhala-gat (violin, viola and electronic music)
III Ghazal (2 soprano soloists, counter-tenor soloist, string sextet and electronic music)


This work was commissioned for the festivities of the 500th aniversary of the Portuguese discoveries. It was conceived as a western perspective about some musical traditions of the eastern countries. There is no intention to establish strict theoretical relations, but the pieces of “Le Voyage des Sons” are the result of sound images suggested by these eastern traditions. 
This work is composed by three pieces.

The first piece (Mahakala Sadhana) is based on the musical tradition of Tibet Budhism. The Mahakala Chak-she-pa is protector of the Darma, that removes all the obstacles and permits the achievement of full illumination.

The second piece (Alap-jor-jhala-gat) of this group is based on the tradition of India. Alap-jor-jhala-gat is an instrumental genre featuring unmetered melodic gestures, that gradually gains rhytmic pulsation, then proceeds to metered music on a gat.

The third piece (Ghazal) is based on the music of the Qawal (wandering ministrels) from Pakistan. The Ghazal are sung poems of a mystical character, and they usually refer to the emotions of love or the transitory aspects of the world. They are made of couplets. The text used in this Ghazal is from the Upanisads.

Alap

Le Voyage des Sons
I - Mahakala Sadhana (electronic music)
II - Alap-jor-jhala-gat (violin, viola and electronic music)
III Ghazal (2 soprano soloists, counter-tenor soloist, string sextet and electronic music)

This work was commissioned for the festivities of the 500th aniversary of the Portuguese discoveries. It was conceived as a western perspective about some musical traditions of the eastern countries. There is no intention to establish strict theoretical relations, but the pieces of “Le Voyage des Sons” are the result of sound images suggested by these eastern traditions. 
This work is composed by three pieces.

The first piece (Mahakala Sadhana) is based on the musical tradition of Tibet Budhism. The Mahakala Chak-she-pa is protector of the Darma, that removes all the obstacles and permits the achievement of full illumination.

The second piece (Alap-jor-jhala-gat) of this group is based on the tradition of India. Alap-jor-jhala-gat is an instrumental genre featuring unmetered melodic gestures, that gradually gains rhytmic pulsation, then proceeds to metered music on a gat.

The third piece (Ghazal) is based on the music of the Qawal (wandering ministrels) from Pakistan. The Ghazal are sung poems of a mystical character, and they usually refer to the emotions of love or the transitory aspects of the world. They are made of couplets. The text used in this Ghazal is from the Upanisads.

Text:
yo vai bhuma tat sukham, nalpe sukham asti, bhumaiva sukham; 
bhuma tv eva vijijñasitavya iti; bhumanam, bhagavah, vijijñasa iti.
yatra nanyat pasyati nanyac chrnoti nanyad vijanati sa bhuma;
yo vai bhuma tad amrtam, atha yad alpam tan martyam;
sa, bhagavah, kasmin pratishthita iti;
sue mahimni, yadi va na mahimniti.

Translation:
The infinite is hapiness. There is no happiness in anything finite. Only the infinite is happiness.
But one must desire to understand the infinite. Venerable Sir, I desire to understand the infinite.
Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else, that is the infinite.
Verily, the infinite is the same as the immortal, the finite is the same as the mortal.
Venerable Sir, on what is the infinite established?
On its own greatness or not even on greatness.

Ghazal

This work was composed at the personal studio of the composer.
The title itself (translation is: The Narrow Ladder) relates not to the piece in its essence, but to a certain moment in the life of the composer. Sometimes it is necessary to let go some of our desires, wishes, ambitions, in order to become a happy person. This difficult process is described in some poetry and literature as a step by step descending of a narrow staircase, in order to leave the palace of illusions, and discover more pure and perfect reasons for life.

A Escada Estreita

Vox Sum Vitae (I am the voice of life) is an inscription in a church bell in Strasbourg.
In one of my trips to perform an organ concert in Germany, on a Sunday morning I was woke suddenly with the sound of hundreds of church bells, announcing the early morning church service.
This piece is a representation of that sound image.

Vox Sum Vitae

Looking Into The Mirror

Orquestra de sopros da Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Ana Telles (piano) e Alberto Roque (maestro).

Pianissimo (2017)

Grupo de Música Contemporânea de Lisboa
18 de junho | 18:00
Cine-Teatro Avenida, Castelo Branco
19 de junho | 21:30
direcção: Vasco Pearce de Azevedo

Os Sons Em Volta (2019) (in memoriam Constança Capdeville)

Caires, Carlos. All-in-one expanded. 2018. 
Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, direção Pablo Rus Broseta. Auditório Guilhermina Suggia - Casa da Música. Porto

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

All - In - One Expanded (2012)

Quattro - 4 Percussionists and live electronics
2005 Version
Grupo de Percussão da Orquestra Sinfónica da RAI
Direcção: Pierre André Valade

Photo by Jordan Graff on Unsplash

Quattro (2005)

ORCHESTRUTOPICA
CORO DE CÂMARA DA ESCOLA SUPERIOR DE MÚSICA DE LISBOA
PAULO LOURENÇO direcção coral
MIHHAIL GERTS direcção musical
12 Dez 2009 

CENTRO CULTURAL DE BELÉM
PEQUENO AUDITÓRIO - SALA EDUARDO PRADO COELHO

Photo by Noah Black on Unsplash

Painting wordpainting (2009)

Limiar 2002
Nuno Pinto, Clarinete

Photo by Bui Bao on Unsplash

Limiar (2002)

INFERNO
for Choir, Orchestra, and Solo Performer

Gulbenkian Choir & Orchestra
conductor. Nuno Coelho
soloist. Andre Hencleeday

music. Nuno da Rocha
text. Clément Bondu

commissioned by OSESP - Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo & Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
premiere. 24th January 2020

audio & video. Gulbenkian Música | Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

INFERNO - for Choir, Orchestra, and Solo Performer

João Miguel Santos (b. 2002) is a music lover and composer born in Lisbon, Portugal, with a Bachelor's Degree in Composition from Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (Lisbon's College of Music) under the guidance of professor Luis Tinoco, having also previously studied with professor João Madureira, Carlos Caires and attended private masterclasses with Valerio Sannicandro, Jaime Reis and Thomas Gorbach.
He also loves animals, live music of any kind and vegan pizza. ❤