Page from Darwin's notebooks around July 1837, showing his first sketch of an evolutionary tree.
perante sonora flor esta (2016)
for orchestra.
The imagination of a sounding forest, with trees that expand and contract, turn into dust to reassemble themselves; birds that only sing when there is silence, afraid of it. This orchestral fantasy develops like a tree, branching out, into surprising new flowers, plants, animals accompanying us.
Instrumentation: 4 (2picc),2,2,2/0,2,0/hrp/perc/14,12,10,8,6 .
Commissioned by Casa da Música as Young Composer in Residence 2016.
Orquestra Sinfonica do Porto, Baldur Brönnimann 2016.
Cantos (2014)
for choir a cappella
2nd prize in Styria Cantat International Competition
Text by Fernando Pessoa (Ricardo Reis).
Cantos, risos e flores alumiem
Nosso mortal destino
Para o ermo ocultar fundo, noturno
De nosso pensamento.
Songs, laughter, flowers illuminate
Our mortal end
As to hide the wasteland deep, nocturnal
Of our thought.
(transl. by António B. Sá-Dantas)
The Shepherd and the Nymph, Titian (1576)