"Vasco Mendonça’s omnivorous curiosity"
Pedro Boléo | Público, 21.01.24
“Composer Vasco Mendonça's relationship with Casa da Música (CdM) began in 2007 when António Jorge Pacheco, then programming coordinator and now the institution's artistic director, invited him to be the Young Composer in Residence, the year the programme began. Now, at the age of 46, he is the composer-in-residence for this season, which has Portugal as its theme country.
"At the time, it was something very special," Vasco Mendonça, a composer that has been consistently making a name for himself in contemporary music, told PÚBLICO. "I had just left school and it was, in a way, the moment I realised that there was the possibility of a career as a composer." Mendonça studied at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (ESML) and then had two important stints abroad: Amsterdam, where he studied with Klaas de Vries, and London, where he went to further his studies with composer George Benjamin.
And what does this residency mean at this point in your life? "It's extraordinary in terms of prestige. You only have to look at some of the composers who preceded me, some of them my heroes, really. And I'm grateful and honoured to be able to present my work in such a substantial way this season," he tells us with a certain pride. But which heroes are they? "Kaija Saariaho, who beyond an artistic admiration was someone with whom I had the pleasure of having a personal relationship, and who was very important to me. But also Helmut Lachenmann, Magnus Lindberg or, more recently, Rebecca Saunders, who are fabulous composers with a very special voice," says Mendonça.
The pieces chosen for this residency give an - open-ended - picture of his journey so far. The first, ‘Group Together, Avoid Speech’, which was performed this Saturday, was written for the anniversary of the Gulbenkian Orchestra (in 2012), but Vasco Mendonça thought it would make sense here, "in this case celebrating the incredible Porto Symphony Orchestra and its soloists. This piece was the moment in my symphonic writing when a door opened and I felt that I had found something personal," says the composer, as if he were pointing out the forks in his artistic road on a map. "A dimension was revealed, which is the dramatic nature of my personal discourse. Almost all the works have this feature of dramatic opposition, whether it's the concerto grosso in Group Together, the two concertos for piano and violin that will be performed at the CdM, or even the two pieces with voice. There's always this theatrical side that reveals my predisposition for scenic drama," says Mendonça.
‘Three Speeches and a Technique’, a suite taken from the opera ‘Bosch Beach’, will be performed this Sunday by Remix Ensemble, alongside works by Peter Eötvös and Emmanuel Nunes, and with mezzo-soprano Christina Daletska. But this suite transforms the opera's original numbers with a new text: "I changed the text into three political speeches, each with a quality: The choice; The future; The recount. And a fourth part, which is called ‘A technique’, referring to an exercise: how to hold a fist in public to achieve maximum rhetorical effectiveness. I wanted to create a series of musical speeches at archetypal moments in political discourse."
Opera and musical theatre don't leave him - after Jerusalem (2009), Ping (2011), The House Taken Over (2013), Bosch Beach (2016) and The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf (2022), he continues to work in this field, and is preparing "a slightly less conventional musical theatre piece", without revealing more for now. "Opera interests me a lot as a creator. Next week the French version of ‘The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf’ will premiere at the Paris Opera, and I'm really happy about that too."
Musical theatre is now part of his nature: "George Benjamin, speaking about Messiaen, said that we need to find our 'vérité'. I think opera fits into my artistic 'vérité'. It also interests me as an educator: I'm writing and directing a series for Mezzo channel, [streaming platform] medici.tv and for RTP2 about contemporary opera. It's a medium and a genre that I think is extremely rich and that needs to be better known,” he says.
"This series arose from a personal dissatisfaction I had. Since the beginning of the 21st century, we've had a group of fabulous operatic works and people still have the idea that opera is Carmen and the Puccinis. It makes sense to show other things. And then it has to do with my own creative satisfaction and my teaching activity. Talking to creators, lighting designers, stage directors, everything contributes to enriching my palette, and not just the musical one: theatre is the main reason for being an opera composer. It's important to understand how artists from completely different fields work and think." And he insists that we must not lose our curiosity: "How can I use these very different languages and incorporate them into my discourse?"
Creating is "confusion and doubt"
How does Vasco Mendonça set about writing music? How, in his case, does one move from the zone of creative chaos to the "invention of the concrete" spoken of by the painter Marcel Gromaire? "The creative process is above all confusion and doubt. But there are two essential dimensions: one is the conceptual vision of the work, a priori, which can be of the most diverse inspiration possible. Then there's the labour of executing, of building the soundscape, which has to stand on its own. A good concept doesn't always create a good piece. More and more in my music there is this urgency of creating, through musical invention, a soundscape that is fresh, contrasting, personal. And that's almost the work of a craftsman, of manufacturing," he explains to PÚBLICO.
At the same time, he seems to be broadening his interests and horizons. "There's also a certain omnivorous characteristic to my research," he says, referring to his pedagogical work (teaching at ESML and Universidade Lusíada), his musical theatre projects and his broadcasting work, because "it's all connected". But for him, contemporary music has to come out of its shell and its "niche" even more. "There are various misconceptions on the part of the public, and sometimes in the students themselves. This idea of 'contemporary music'... That doesn't mean anything. What exists are contemporary manifestations and proposals for music. It doesn't necessarily have to obey this or that aesthetic primer" says this creator who is concerned about the echoes of his music.
Vasco Mendonça believes that there is also a responsibility for artists: "There needs to be an awareness among creators to adapt the discourse, not in what we do, but in the way we communicate. There are initiatives parallel to creation that can help us get out of this dead end. Taking music out of intimidating concert halls, holding meetings with the public so that they have access to the voice of the creators. Because that's also what sets us apart from Beethoven - we're alive!"
A vision
This season, Vasco Mendonça's music will appear again on CdM in March (16th), with ‘Step Right Up’, a piano concerto, and in April (19th), with a new orchestral version of ‘American Settings’ (the version previous one was for countertenor and percussion), a song cycle based on poems by Tracy K. Smith and Terrence Hayes that is, according to Mendonça, “a kind of imaginary American folklore seen through my eyes”. A concert with countertenor Iestyn Davies, which Mendonça considers “magnificent”.
Later, in October, there will be the premiere of a new piece for orchestra: “This one is still a mystery. I'm going to give the muse a little more time so she can get closer...”, he ironizes. And finally, in November, his violin concerto will premiere, with the Remix Ensemble and Carolin Widmann on violin. “I wanted it to be for violin and ensemble – and not for orchestra –, because the character of the violin, in my projection, makes sense with a smaller ensemble”, says the composer, who realized that the violin could give him “more pleasure than what would you imagine” when he composed ‘A Box of Darkness with a Bird in its Heart’, a piece written for Ukrainian violinist Diana Tishchenko, premiered at Gulbenkian Foundation in 2023.
A year full of music for Vasco Mendonça. Music with dramatic momentum, but without drama. "I feel less and less the idea that the world is going to end or be mine depending on whether a piece goes or well or not. More and more I have this notion of creating a long-term discourse, a personal vision of the world."
THREE SPEECHES AND A TECHNIQUE
“No less protean and multiform was (…) ‘Three Speeches and a Technique’, a score for voice and ensemble by the composer in residence at Casa da Música in 2024 (…) This union of echoes of Le Grand Macabre (…) with American imprints, and instrumental glissandi with vocal portamenti, gives ‘The Choice’ a polymorphic vivacity that ‘Three Speeches’ retains throughout its development. ‘The Future’, with its progressive political discourse, is a powerful cosmopolitan outlook (…) with constant changes of style and reorganisation of materials, combining with the ensemble a solo voice whose parts are of supreme difficulty due to the continuous succession of new registers, techniques and diversified attacks (…)
Meanwhile, ‘The Recount’ introduces us to an initially delicate and nocturnal atmosphere, with a voice that takes us back to the expressionist beginnings of the 20th century, both for its lyricism and for its harmonic relationship with the ensemble (of Germanic descent). This parenthesis is broken in ‘The Power Fist’, with an opening in which the musicians stamp their feet furiously on the floor, exposing new forms of violence: initially, disjointed; later, amalgamating the discursive organisation of the ensemble around this dialectic of blows and hatred, with greater rhythmic cohesion (…) As in the third Speech, the voice in ‘The Power Fist’ presents parts of harmonisation with strings and woodwinds: a sensitive and poetic elegy that leads the score to a finale of great contrast with the more parodic first movements, so colourful and polyhedral. (…)”
Paco Yañez | Scherzo, 24.01.24
LA PETITE FILLE, LE CHASSEUR ET LE LOUP
The premiere of the French version of Mendonça’s children opera THE GIRL, THE HUNTER AND THE WOLF at Opera National de Paris was received enthusiastically by both public and critic, receiving rave reviews in the French press:
“This is the bittersweet fable told to us by composer Vasco Mendonça and librettist Gonçalo M. Tavares in The Little Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf. Given as part of the Paris Opera's young audience program, this humble and poetic work poses, at a child's level, the question of what feeds our prejudices. At the same time, it opens a door to contemporary opera, for an audience that rarely has access to it. Despite a small musical formation (electric guitar, cello, clarinets and percussion), Vasco Mendonça never infantilizes his language.”
Thierry Hillériteau | Le Figaro, 31.01.24
“The Spectra ensemble, with its varied composition of cello, clarinet, percussion and electric guitar, supports the story in a musical blend that skilfully fuses elements of modal and contemporary music. The voice, for its part, is rooted in the lyrical tradition, with a narrative phrasing that has a modern dynamic. The score offers a progression of narrative tension, with simplicity and coherence, focusing on a fluid unfolding that faithfully accompanies the actions and emotions of the characters.”
Juan Barrios | Olyrix, 03.02.21
GROUP TOGETHER, AVOID SPEECH
© Rui Teixeira | Casa da Música
“Group Together, Avoid Speech (2012) is exemplary, starting with an orchestral arrangement that could well have been signed by Nunes, placing a woodwind quartet and a string quintet on the first risers. This reinforces Vasco Mendoça's formulation of this score as a modern concerto grosso, extremely varied in the presence of solo voices and timbral colours, so that the dialogue with the works of Nunes and Ravel was as consistent as it was beautiful and direct.
Loosely inspired by T. S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men (1925), on Group Together, Avoid Speech draws on influences ranging from Wolfgang Rihm in its first movement to Enno Poppe in the nocturnal second, through the delicate melismas of the solo viola and cello duo: one of the many chamber organisations through which Mendonça reorganises and enlivens the orchestra (…) a highly imaginative and texturally varied use of orchestral resources shines through. All this was reinforced by an Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto which, year after year, demonstrates its mastery of contemporary music, greatly improving its interpretative level thanks to continued work with some of the most prestigious conductors in this repertoire, as has once again been the case with Sylvain Cambreling.”
Paco Yañez | Scherzo, 24.01.24
Composer-in-Residence at Casa da Música in 2024
Vasco Mendonça has been announced as the Composer-in-Residence at Casa da Música Porto during the 2024 season. This prestigious position, whose past editions include some of the most important composers in activity, includes two large scale commissions, four world premieres, six concerts and a number of seminars.
New documentary series for MEZZO and medici.tv
Vasco Mendonça is developing a new documentary series commissioned by French channel MEZZO, streaming platform medici.tv and Portuguese public channel RTP2. The series, to be released in 2026, is written and directed by Mendonça, co-produced by Laranja Azul and Proudfoot TV, and aims to present the world of contemporary musical creation to a wider, non-specialist audience, featuring interviews with some of the most important artists in activity today.
CITY OF WIND awarded at Venice Biennale
‘City of Wind’, the debut feature film of award-winning Mongolian director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, with original music composed by Vasco Mendonça, has received the Orizzonti Award for Best Actor at La Biennale on September 2024. The film, an international co-production led by French company Aurora Films, has also been selected as Mongolia’s entry to the 96th Academy Awards.
French version of THE GIRL, THE HUNTER AND THE WOLF at Paris National Opera
Opéra National de Paris will premiere the French version of Mendonça´s children´s opera THE GIRL, THE HUNTER AND THE WOLF, premiered last October at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam . This piece is a commission from DNO, co-produced by LOD Muziektheater, Teatro Municipal do Porto, Cineteatro Louletano and Lu.Ca - Teatro Luis de Camões. Both Dutch and Portuguese versions have been so far been touring in Ghent, Porto, Loulé and Lisbon to great acclaim.
THE GIRL, THE HUNTER AND THE WOLF
"The very serious idea behind this (libretto by Gonçalo M.Tavares), the detailed direction by Inne Goris, the excellent performance by all the soloists and the very special and interesting music by Vasco Mendonça, made this opera a special experience."
Olga de Kort | Place de l´Opera, 31.10.22
"The strength of Mendonça and Tavares' proposal (as well as the quality of the questions it raises in the children) is such that we hope to see The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf on our French stages again soon."
Laurent Vilarem | Opera Online, 18.10.22
"Vasco Mendonça's composition is a cascade of contemporary music, sounds and sound effects that give the performance a strong emotional charge."
Anita Twaalfhoven | Trouw, 16.10.22
"Vasco Mendonça's music is also a driving factor, played sublimely by Spectra."
Britt van Klaveren | Het Parool, 16.10.22
"The music, performed by Spectra, is quite complex but exciting, with lots of percussion, timpani beats and bass lines, and there is fine singing by Arturo den Hartog, Leonie van Rheden and Sabra el Bahri Khatri."
Margriet Prinssen | Theaterkrant, 16.10.22
"Vasco Mendonça's music creates rich environments of sound imagination (...) in a captivating vocal writing, with very accomplished numbers (...) and with many well developed rhythmic games. (...) Music with a sharp theatrical sense (...) 'The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf' suggests at the end that there may be a dance with the world, in a vague but beautiful reply, full of poetry (...) it is indeed an opera for almost all ages, in which simplicity is not infantilizing. On the contrary, it stands out as challenging for a child who is invited to listen, to imagine and to become aware"
Pedro Boléo | Público, 05.06.23
"In Amsterdam, the big friendly wolf of Vasco Mendonça"
Laurent Vilarem | Opera Online, 18.10.22
"What if we had fun rewriting the tales of our childhood? In Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf appears as a terrible predator and the child as a fragile and threatened being. What if we reversed the roles?
This is the mission that Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça (one of his country's most important) and librettist Gonçalo M. Tavares (a great Portuguese-speaking writer who has been translated worldwide) set themselves in their opera The Little Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf, which premiered at the Amsterdam Opera House. This is a work for children: the hall is full of little blonde heads (sometimes under five) and there is a relative calm before the performance begins.
The story is beautiful: the wolf meets two little pigs but is wounded by a hunter. If he howls, it's because he's hungry: it's in his nature. If he scares people, he regrets it: he is considered a monster because he is different. He meets a young girl with whom he manages to establish a bond. The wolf wants to go to the moon "where there are no more hunters", but unfortunately a hunter finds him. And in the house of the little girl where he has taken refuge, it is finally the hunter who is in the bed to kill him!
It is difficult to know what the children present at the performance thought. One would have thought that they were frightened by the howling of the wounded wolf, especially as the show confronts certain episodes of violence head on. But psychoanalysts have long shown that this intensity is inherent in the cathartic effect of stories. With the exception of one very young child (who will leave at the very beginning of the performance), all the young spectators remain very calm, their eyes fixed on the stage.
Inne Goris' staging is very ingenious. A rectangle covered with leaves makes the objects necessary for the action, such as a door or a tree, appear in a poetic way. Lotte Boonstra's costumes are delightful: the girl's jacket is a bright red, the little pigs have a corkscrew tail, and the wolf's fur on the singer's head is glaringly real. There is a lot of humanity and mischief in the interactions between the characters. The singers are wonderfully suited to their roles: Arturo den Hartog's wolf has not a bass voice as one might have expected, but a countertenor voice (which admittedly lacks a little power). Leonie van Rheden is a very good hunter, but it is Sabra El Bahri-Khatri who lights up the stage in the brilliant role of the girl/red riding hood.
Musically, Vasco Mendonça chose an original formation. The Spectra ensemble is located at the back of the stage and consists of a cello, a clarinet, an electric guitar and a percussion set. With its short rhythmic loops, one is reminded of American minimalism, especially Steve Reich, and even of the music of Louis Andriessen, especially since Mendonça does not soften his instrumental palette. There is a kind of darkness in this opera for children, combined with some very melancholy moments. The little girl, the hunter and the wolf has many elegiac arias in which the characters look at themselves and complain about their condition. Mendonça's lyrical vocal writing includes suspended arias that sound like something out of a John Adams opera or a Broadway musical. The girl's final aria "The World Dances" is the most beautiful poetic achievement of this endearing work.
Because of the many instrumental interludes, the show sometimes seems a little slow, but the strength of Mendonça and Tavares' proposal (as well as the quality of the questions it raises in the children) is such that we hope to see this Young Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf on our French stages again soon."
read original (French) here
"The wolf befriends Little Red Riding Hood in wonderful youth opera"
Anita Twaalfhoven | Trouw, 16.10.22
"Here comes the wolf! The very angry wolf! Hunt him, boil him. Hunt him, roast him. We chop him into little pieces." In the youth opera The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf, the danger comes from the hunters. Not from the wolf, who is mostly sad and he longs for the moon.
The National Opera, in collaboration with LOD music theatre, presents a beautiful, compact opera that sheds new light on the role of the wolf in well-known fairy tales. Singers and musicians sing and perform around a schematically designed set, in which a wide tray of earth depicts the dark forest. The wolf can dig in, the hunters hide in the bushes and a single door is the home of the piglets and Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother. The battle takes place between the wolf and the hunters who drive up the hungry animal.
A waterfall of sound and music
Countertenor Arturo den Hartog's hairy wolf mask and nimble stealth make him an intriguing character who is half-man, half-wolf. In his melancholic singing, weeping can be heard in elongated exclamations. His counterpart mezzo-soprano Leonie van Rheden is therefore a powerful hunter who scares the hell out of him in staccato sung phrases.
Vasco Mendonça's composition is a cascade of contemporary music, sounds and sound effects that give the performance a strong emotional charge. The musicians play on cello, clarinet, percussion and electric guitar at the back of the forest, enhancing the magical atmosphere.
Red Riding Hood as a backpacker
The three piglets - there are only two here - also join in. When the hunters turn around, we see their big pink backs with a curly tail. The wolf looks longingly at the full meat, but even though he is so hungry, he does not harm a piglet. He is good friends with Little Red Riding Hood. She is therefore a self-reliant girl who strides through the forest with a big backpack like a backpacker. Soprano Sabra El Bahri-Khatri sings along with the wolf in a dance-like rhythm and is the only one who really makes contact with him.
The surtitles of the Dutch-sung opera seem like a continuous poem because of the short, poetic sentences. Gonçalo Tavares wrote a libretto with multiple layers of meaning. The children understand that this wolf does little wrong and is blamed for everything. "I am not hunting you because you are bad, but because I am afraid," says the hunter. Parents and grandparents have their own associations with the fear of the other or the unknown leading to aggression and persecution.
Even though the text exposes the meaning of the fairy tale, the open-ended ending keeps the mystery alive. The wolf howls at the moon and hopes to find his home there.
read original (Dutch) here
Album PLAY OFF shortlisted for PLAY awards
Vasco Mendonça´s latest album PLAY OFF - performed by percussion group Drumming GP and released by label Holuzam - has been shortlisted for the PLAY awards, in the 'Best Classical Album' category.
"Children deserve to be taken seriously"
Wout van Tongeren | Nationale Opera & Ballet, 11.10.22
In The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf, the character of the wolf is not the scary monster we know from fairy tales, but a hunted loner in need of help. Director Inne Goris and composer Vasco Mendonça talk about their children’s opera, which invites the audience to be open to new ways of thinking about the world.
read online here
To start with: how did the idea for this show come about?
Vasco: ‘I was interested in making a children’s opera about a subject that is close to my heart. I’m worried by the way that people handle differences of opinion in the today’s world. If you have a disagreement, you should be able to sit down together and find a compromise. But it seems that nowadays people often want to silence their opponents completely, to crush them. I wanted to make the point that what is different is not necessarily dangerous. So I came up with the idea of taking the story of the three little pigs and telling it from the wolf’s perspective. He would explain that it was all a big misunderstanding, that he never intended to eat the pigs. I got to talking with Inne about that idea, and she suggested broadening my focus beyond that one fairy tale and take the character of the wolf as a point of departure.’
Inne: ‘I told him straightaway that I’ve never been crazy about the tale of the three little pigs. That could’ve been the end of the project right there, but we managed to find common ground in the figure of the wolf, a very intriguing character. We know him from various fairy tales: he is always the bad guy, always solitary, manly and hungry. But if you read about real wolves, you learn that they can go up to 10 days without food, that they usually live together in packs and that a “lone wolf” is actually often a female. All those things seemed like an interesting context to work from. That was the jumping-off point of our conversation.’
In the story as it was ultimately conceived by librettist Gonçalo Tavares, the hungry wolf is on the run from two hunters. He meets Little Red Riding Hood, who, in contrast to the hunters, actually opens up to him and tries to help. Whether she succeeds or not is left up in the air. Why not opt for an straightforward happy ending?
Vasco: ‘The wolf embodies our fear of the unknown, of the Other. In this show we tell a story about differences, about disagreements, about misunderstandings. From that perspective, would it make sense to have everything come to a nice pat conclusion? That’s not what the world is like. I think it would be great if the children thought about the ending for themselves afterwards and came up with their own ideas about how the story should end.’
Inne: ‘We soon found ourselves on the same page on this issue too. Neither of us are afraid to show the darker sides of life in a show, to leave things ambiguous. That’s very important to me as a creator. I think you should take children seriously. They also have a dark side; they also do bad things.’
And shows for children should reflect that complex reality?
Inne: ‘That’s right: I don’t want to shy away from heavy topics. As a child you go through a lot: your cat dies, your grandmother dies, you get into a row with someone at school – you name it. Ugly, dark things happen, that’s part of life. And you’re not doing children any favours by leaving things like that out of a show. You have to give them a chance to relate to these kinds of issues and talk about them. I sometimes get the sense that parents and teachers are afraid to talk to children about the more serious themes after the performance. That’s the real problem.’
Vasco: ‘But that’s the crux of it: you have to talk about it, so these subjects don’t turn into boogeymen, so big and terrifying that you can’t deal with them anymore. If I shielded my children until they reached adulthood and then sent them into the turbulent world, how long would they last? Wouldn’t it be better to expose them to the less pleasant side of life in a mild way, in small doses like with a vaccination, so they build up their immunity?’
And how does The Girl, the Hunter and the Wolf prepare its young audience members for life?
Vasco: ‘It’s important that in this show Little Red Riding Hood is not the helpless girl threatened by the wolf. Of all the characters she’s probably the one who’s most in control of the situation.’
Inne: ‘She can build a rocket; she’s a tough cookie.’
Vasco: ‘And a special connection develops between her and the wolf. There’s a basis of empathy between the wolf, who needs help, and Little Red Riding Hood, who is more self-assured. It’s a layered relationship, which the audience can interpret for themselves.’
Inne: ‘In the end it’s Little Red Riding Hood who brings the proceedings to a close. She sings: “The world is a strange party, but I’m dancing.” And to me that means: the world may be complex, but it’s possible to move through it gently, at your own pace. Be open and make connections; to me, that’s what she’s saying at the end.’
Vasco: ‘And ultimately that’s a very positive message: connect with people, don’t say no right away. Give others a chance.’
World premiere of THE GIRL, THE HUNTER AND THE WOLF at Dutch National Opera
Mendonça´s new children´s opera, THE GIRL, THE HUNTER AND THE WOLF premieres October 15 at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam - with a libretto by Gonçalo M. Tavares, directed by Inne Goris, and performed by Spectra Ensemble. This piece is a commission from DNO, co-produced by LOD Muziektheater, Teatro Municipal do Porto, Cineteatro Louletano and Lu.Ca - Teatro Luis de Camões. After the premiere, the Dutch version of the opera will then go performed in Ghent, while a Portuguese version will premiere December 9 in Teatro Municipal do Porto, with further dates in the 2022/2023 season in Funchal, Loulé and Lisbon.
European performances of A BOX OF DARKNESS WITH A BIRD IN ITS HEART
Throughout the 2022-2023 season, the violin piece A BOX OF DARKNESS WITH A BIRD IN ITS HEART will be extensively performed throughout Europe, including venues such as ElbPhilharmonie Hamburg, BOZAR Brussels, B:Music Birmingham, Philharmonie de Paris, Mupa Budapest, among others. This piece was a co-commission of European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO), Casa da Música Porto and Philharmonie de Paris, for ECHO's Rising Stars laurate Diana Tishchenko.
New CD for voice and percussion by Drumming GP
In November, Porto-based percussion group Drumming GP will feature in a portrait CD of Vasco Mendonça´s music. Titled PLAY OFF and released by lisbon-based label Holuzam, this album is the outcome of the composer´s artistic residence with the ensemble in 2019/2020, and displays several solo and chamber commissions - including a piece for voice and percussion featuring South African countertenor Stephen Diaz.
ARTE film and tour of ONE OF FOUR PERIODS IN TIME
ARTE film and tour of ONE OF FOUR PERIODS IN TIME
Throughout the 2022-2022 Season, ONE OF FOUR PERIODS IN TIME (ELLIPSIS), choreographer Tania Carvalho's new piece featuring stage music by Mendonça will be travelling to Italy, The Netherlands, France, Germany and Israel in an extensive European tour. This piece was commissioned by the Ballet National de Marseille and premiered in March 2021.
ONE OF FOUR PERIODS IN TIME (ELLIPSIS) has also been filmed by french/german TV Channel ARTE and is available to watch on streaming until March 2023.