IN-CANTO, BY LUÍSA AMARO 

13 and 14 February

AUDITORIUM

21.30

Music

In-canto, BY luísa amaro

LUÍSA AMARO (Portuguese guitar) ANTÓNIO EUSTÁQUIO (guitolão (cithara)), GONÇALO LOPES (clarinets) BALTAZAR MOLINA (Asian percussion)

Design and direction: RUI LOPES GRAÇA

Having spent 24 years touring the world with Carlos Paredes and developing a unique form of composing that always reminds of Portugal and its cultural mixture built up over the last five centuries. Luísa Amaro, the first female ever to make a Portuguese guitar recording, in 2004 released the CD Canção para Carlos Paredes (Song for Carlos Paredes), thus embarking on a courageous path for a woman enamoured with an instrument that had previously been an exclusively masculine domain.

Currently, Luísa Amaro presses on with her search for new avenues for the Portuguese guitar having set up the IN-CANTO project for the Portuguese guitar and a new Portuguese instrument – the guitolão. This instrument, and the only one existing worldwide, traces its origins to a suggestion made by Carlos Paredes to the instrument maker Gilberto Grácio and who built it a few years later. Its sound, absolutely and uniquely Portuguese, crosses with other sounds and in harmony with Arabic percussion discovers new timbres and musical partnerships.

Hence, guest musicians feature, in addition to António Eustáquio, Baltazar Molina, a disciple of Asian percussion and the clarinettist Gonçalo Lopes with his vast repertoire of Oriental music.

IN-CANTO is a pioneering project that once and for all breaks the exclusive bond of the Portuguese guitar to Fado and the masculine. In the performance, the appeal to the senses, spirituality and musical transcendence are all very present.

Meditherranios, the new group project, opens the door onto an understanding of the lyricism of their music blending the Portuguese guitar, the guitolão, the bass clarinet and Asian percussion.

Running counter to all of the Portuguese guitar conventions, Luísa Amaro takes us on a practically unique tour of her love for an instrument that always reminds us of the echoes of ancient times, whether from ancestral Coimbra or our way of feeling the Mediterranean.

The guitolão is suggestive of the Arabian lute, the clarinet engages in a journey across the Balkans and Turkey while the Asian percussion takes us off to Egypt and Persia while the Portuguese guitar returns us to our point of departure...

IN-CANTO is ready to enchant with a full repertoire and now featuring new songs written by Luísa Amaro along with classical pieces such as Arabic Caprice, by Tarrega.

Program:

Presentation of CD Meditherranios

Price: € 15.00

Over 6s

Aprox. duration: 75 minutes, no intermission

Co-produced by: Fundação Oriente/Hepta