VIO-LATINO | sherrygrant

Introducing... Alto Nova Duo!

Dutch violist Emlyn Stam and NZ pianist Sherry Grant first met at the 47th International Viola Congress in USA (2022), and then again at the 48th International Viola Congress in Thailand (2023).

They decided in 2023 to collaborate as a duet for the 49th International Viola Congress in Brazil (July 2024) to present a new programme of contemporary music, written especially for them by expat South American composers, followed by a tour around South America. This would be first project before they set off to explore more viola repertoire, both new and old, known and unknown, to introduce to audience around the world.

Sherry Grant
(New Zealand/Taiwan)

Emlyn Stam
(Netherlands/Canada)

¡Vio-Latino!

What is Vio-Latino?

Vio-Latino is a programme of brand new compositions for viola and piano by composers originally from South America living outside of their home countries. The programme is made up of 10 commissioned works for which each of the composers was invited to explore elements of his/her South American cultural heritage and reflect on how this has influenced and informed their compositional style. The program further explores the notion of migration, belonging and how cross-cultural interactions influence our experience of the world and the art we create. The Vio-Latino recital world premiere, a 50-minute programme, will be presented in a multimedia format where the music is accompanied by poetry reading and a photographic display of accompanying visual art by contemporary South American creatives.

Dutch Violist Emlyn Stam and New Zealand Pianist Sherry Grant curated this program with the 49th International Viola Congress 2024 in Campinas Brazil in mind. Their aim is to tour further in South America as well as to record these new works.

Who is composing for Vio-Latino?

10 composers born in Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil who are currently living and working in the UK, USA, Australia, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Cuba and Israel have been invited to write new viola/piano works for the VioLatino project. The composers are:

Moshe Knoll (Venezuela/USA)

Composer and pianist Moshe Knoll grew up in Venezuela and pursued further studies at Julliard School of Music. He currently resides in New York and is composer in residence at the ArtsAhmisa Music Festival.

Luis Saglie (Chile/Australia)

Luis Saglie is an international composer with regular performances and projects in Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania. Recipient of international prizes and awards, Saglie acts as curator and adjudicator for international music festivals and competitions. He received formal studies as a composer, conductor and pianist at Music and Arts University in Vienna and UCLA in the USA. Saglie teaches Composition at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Andrián Pertout (Chile/Australia)

Pertout lives in Melbourne, Australia. He was born and raised in Santiago, Chile before pursuing his studies in Italy and Australia. His works have been widely performed in Australia, the USA, Europe and South America and apart from instrumental works, he has written music for documentaries and dance performances. Pertout is fascinated by the application of scientific and mathematic concepts in his music.

Martin Musaubach 明馬丁 (Argentina/Taiwan)

Musa is a multi-award winning Argentinean/Taiwanese musician. Born in the city of La Plata, at a young age took the opportunity to travel the world and found success as an artist, composer and producer in East Asia. Ha currently resides in Taipei where his own indie label, 3690 Studios is based.

Polo Piatti (Argentina/UK)

Piatti grew up and studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has resided in the UK for over 30 years. He is a Neo Romantic composer and his works focus on melody and big, romantic gestures and have been performed by the Prague Philharmonic, the London Mozart Players and the National Symphony Orchestra among others.

Bárbara Varassi Pega (Argentina/Netherlands)

Varassi hails from Rosario, Argentina. As a postdoctoral scholar and author, she is one of the world’s leading experts on tango composition and performance practice. Her works explore new avenues in tango, often integrating elements from post-tonal contemporary classical music. She has composed for the Astor Piazzolla Quintet, Tango Tinto and the New European Ensemble among others. She currently resides in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Silvina Milstein (Argentina/UK)

Milstein grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She currently resides in Cambridge, UK. She studied composition with Judith Weir at Glasgow University. She is fascinated by exploring the integration of the native music of Buenos Aires in her compositional language. Her works have been performed by Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the BBC singers and others.

Marius Díaz (Colombia/Cuba)

Originally from Bogota, Colombia, Diaz studied and lived in Havana, Cuba for many years. He currently studies at the Reina Sofia School of Music in Madrid with Fabián Panisello. His works received numerous prizes in Colombia, Cuba, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. He is also active as an editor, researcher, pedagogue and documentalist.

Jean Kleeb (Brazil/Germany)

Kleeb was born in Santo Andre, Brazil. He moved to Germany in 1991 to continue his work as a composer, pianist, arranger, choir and orchestra director, singer and music teacher. He is often a visiting lecturer in Europe, USA, and South America and jury member at international choir festivals. His compositions for orchestra, chamber music, piano and choir range stylistically from modern, classical, popular music to world music.

Daniel Rojas (Peru-Chile/Australia)

Daniel Rojas is an award-winning composer, pianist, and improviser who draws inspiration from a variety of vibrant Latin American genres. He is frequently commissioned to compose solo, chamber, and orchestral works, with his music often featured on Australian national and local broadcasting networks. Rojas is a regular performer as soloist, a chamber musician and soloist with symphony orchestras. Holding the position of Associate Professor of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, he has also served as a program leader for the Composition and Arts Music departments.

Multimedia Presentation at Vio-Latino

10 local poets and 10 visual artists from South America will be curated at the Vio-Latino recitals.

The Poets

Natalia Litvinova (Argentina)

Natalia Litvinova is an Argentine poet, translator, and editor of the press Editorial Llantén. Her books have been translated into multiple languages and published in France, Germany, and Spain, as well as in Argentina. She teaches writing classes in libraries and in the Argentine Psychoanalytic Center Foundation (Fundación Centro Psicoanalítico Argentino). She was born in Gomel, Belarus, and has lived in Buenos Aires since her family’s immigration there in 1996.

Adriana Lisboa (Brazil)

Adriana Lisboa was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1970. She is the author of several award-winning novels, poetry collections, short stories, and children's books. Her poems and stories have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, Granta, and Revista Casa de las Américas, among others. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries. Adriana has a MA in Brazilian Literature and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Rio de Janeiro State University. She has lived in France, New Zealand and the United States - where she currently resides, in Austin, Texas.

Marina Burana (Argentina/Taiwan)

Marina Burana is a painter and puppeteer/puppet builder. She is also a writer, a barkcloth maker, a performer and a facilitator of participatory art projects for different types of communities. She has published 3 books of short stories in Spanish: A Merlina (Al Margen, 2007), Of Writers and Miserias (El Aleph, 2008) and Real Fictions (Ediciones Masmédula, 2014) and has collaborated with essays, prose, poetry, designs and illustrations for books and magazines from various countries. Her plays in English and Spanish have been presented in the US, Spain, Canada, England, Taiwan, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina. Her paintings are usually showcased in individual and group exhibitions, both in public and commercial galleries, and in Museums. As a puppeteer she has been trained/collaborated with Natacha Belova, TAMTAM objektentheater, Florent Olivier Schwartz, Théâtre de la Sardine, Puppet and Its Double, Puppetry Art Center of Taipei, IATI Theater, Duda Paiva and others. She studied at the Art Students League of New York and received her BA degree in Art, with a concentration in painting from National Taipei University of the Arts (TNUA). IG: @burana_studio. Marina plays the violin and the viola.

Fredy Chikangana (Colombia)

His name in the indigenous language is Wiñay Mallki, which means "root that remains in time." He is a Quechua poet and oralitor from the Yanakuna Nation, in the Yurak Mayu territory of the Cauca Department, Colombia. He won the National University Poetry Prize in Humanities in 1992 and the Nosside Multilingual Global Poetry Prize in Italy in 2019. He has participated in national and international poetry events in native languages, and his poems have been translated into Italian, French, English, Korean, Russian, Japanese, Romanian, and German. He has published the books "Kentipay llattantutamanta/el colibrí de la noche desnuda" in 2008, "Samay Pisccok pponccopi muschcoypa/Espíritu de pájaro en pozos del ensueño" in 2010, and the shared books "Voces de Abya Yala" by Editorial Icono in 2012 and "El círculo de la palabra" by Ed. Universidad Externado in 2008. He has worked on strengthening the Quechua Yanakuna Mitmak identity and "Oraliture," a task he shares with native siblings in the American continent. In recognition of his contribution to the literature of indigenous peoples and identity processes, he received an acknowledgment from the University of Cauca in 2023.

Rosabetty Muñoz (Chile)

Rosabetty Muñoz was born in Ancud, Chiloé, in 1960. She has published 14 books, including "Canto de una oveja del Rebaño" (Song of a Sheep from the Flock), "En Lugar de Morir" (Instead of Dying), "Ratada" (Rodent), "En Nombre de Ninguna" (In the Name of None), "Polvo de Huesos" (Bone Dust), "Ligia", "Técnicas para cegar a los peces" (Techniques to Blind Fish), "Misión Circular" (Circular Mission), "Santo Oficio" (Holy Office), and "La Voz de la Casa" (The Voice of the House). She has received the 2000 Pablo Neruda Prize for her body of works; the Altazor Prize in 2013; Member of the Chilean Academy of Language; Santiago Municipal Prize in poetry for the book "Técnicas para Cegar a los Peces" (2020-2021) and the Jorge Teillier National Poetry Prize 2022.

Katherine Medina Rondón (Peru)

Katherine Medina Rondón (Arequipa, 1994). Poet and visual artist. She has published: Murmullos y volantes (Aletheya, 2012), Amor en cuatro actos y otros cortejos (Casatomada, 2013), Mínima celeste (Transtierros, 2016), Disidencia (Cascahuesos, 2018), Papiros mágicos (Vallejo & co. / Sol negro, 2019), Coraje (Jukucha, 2023) and been included in Tea Party III. Muestra dinámica de poesía latinoamericana (Cinosargo, 2014), Antología XXII Enero en la palabra (Gobierno Municipal de Cusco, 2018), Memorias del 28° Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín (Prometeo, 2018), Antología 5° Festival Caravana de Poesía (Amarti, 2018), Aliados, dosis de poesía para tiempos inciertos (Dendro Ediciones, 2020) and Voces de la poesía peruana (Parihuana, 2021). As a translator, she has published Flores al borde de los abismos, a poetry anthology by Vittoria Aganoor (Sol negro, 2022). She has presented the bi-personal pictorial exhibition Comisura at the Centro Cultural Casa Blanca (Arequipa, 2016) and has participated in various group art exhibitions.

Carmen Andrea Mantilla (Chile)

Writer, Cultural Manager, and Promoter of the Oral Tradition of the Art of Declamation. With a degree in Social Work from the University of Bío-Bío, Carmen Andrea Mantilla is an outstanding Chilean poet from the city of Chillán. She has published, among others, two poetry books: “Alice in the Land of Urgency” (2010, Second Edition 2012) and “Death and Man” (2012), and five poetry pamphlets: “The World of Alice” (2010), “Infinite Bestiary” (2010), “Letters for Gonzalo” (2010), “Marys” (2011), and “Rokha/and/rolling” (2011).**

Laura Mercedes Antillano (Venezuela)

Laura Mercedes Antillano Armas is a Venezuelan writer of novels, short stories, essays, poetry, literary and audiovisual criticism, journalistic chronicles, and children's literature. She has also worked as a puppeteer, radio and television scriptwriter, and cultural promoter. She was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on August 8, 1950. She is the daughter of painter Lourdes Armas and journalist Sergio Antillano. Since she was 10 years old, she has been linked to the city of Maracaibo and later, from 1976 onwards, to the city of Valencia. She graduated with a degree in Hispanic Literature from the University of Zulia in 1972, and in the same year, she published her first novel: "La muerte del monstruo come-piedras" (The Death of the Rock-Eating Monster). She also holds a Master's degree in Venezuelan Literature from the same university. She joined the University of Carabobo as a professor in 1976 and continues to contribute to the institution as a retired professor. She has received several awards, including the National Literature Prize (2012-2014), the José Rafael Pocaterra Biennial Prize for Poetry for her work "Migajas" (Crumbs) in 2004, the Ministry of Culture Literature Prize in 2011, an honorable mention for the Miguel Otero Silva Prize from Editorial Planeta de Venezuela for her novel "Solitaria solidaria" (Solitary in Solidarity) in 1990, the El Nacional short story prize for her story "La luna no es de pan de horno" (The Moon is Not Made of Bread) in 1977, and the Julio Garmendia Prize from the Central University of Venezuela for her short story "Caballero de Bizancio" (Knight of Byzantium) in 1975.

The Artists

Diego Gravinese (Argentina)

Diego Gravinese had his first exhibitions in Buenos Aires, after a brief attendance at the National School of Fine Arts at age 19. He later moved to NY where he had more successful shows, followed by exhibitions in Germany and the rest of Europe. Diego Gavinese's work has evolved over the years, from a social critique influenced by the Argentine Neo Figuración, the American pop and expressionism, the post-punk movement and the advent of the digital era, towards a more personal search joining a review of the history of figurative painting with an inner return to the search for the immanent mystery linked to the awakening of the feminine conscience, figuratively embodied in her Venus series of recent years. Diego's artworks are held in many important collections around the world.

Shalak Attack (Chile/Canada)

Shalak Attack is an award winning Canadian-Chilean visual artist dedicated to painting, multi-media studio arts and is well known for her large scale spray paint murals. Since 2005, she has manifested her artistic expression on walls across the world. Shalak has participated in numerous artistic projects, festivals and exhibitions in Canada, Chile, Brazil, UK, Holland, Germany, Sweden, Senegal, Palestine, Jordan, Israel, Belgium, Spain, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic. She is a co-founder and co-director of the international art collectives “Clandestinos Art” and the “Essencia Art Collective”. Her artwork has been published in books, magazines, newspapers, and has been interviewed in television news and radio, as well as received awards and funding for numerous art projects from federal, provincial and municipal grants for over a decade.

Ezequiel Briseño (Argentina)

Born in Buenos Aires (Argentina), he is a visual communicator and plastic artist. He is founder, director and artist of Muro Sur. He has vast experience in companies such as JVC, Swarovski, Guess, Daewoo, Paris Hilton, among others, working as a Designer and Creative Director. He has made more than 500 murals in Buenos Aires, the Argentine Atlantic Coast, Uruguay and Ushuaia. Additionally, he has held countless individual exhibitions, a live painting show at Miss Bolivia, while he was a jury in 2 editions of the Raúl Soldi de Glew Foundation's Stain contest and has been Muralism coordinator for 6 years in Culture. of Almirante Brown, in Argentina.

Luisa Elena Betancourt (Venezuela)

Luisa Elena Betancourt is a multidisciplinary artist born in Caracas Venezuela. She is recipient of the Fullbright Scholarship (1990) and a Fine Arts Master degree (MFA) from Washington State University (1992). Luisa works with different media in a contemporary manner. Digital images are transferred onto cotton paper through gels and alcohol that result in captivating transparencies. Large format acrylic painting develop into events that capture the essence of her culture. She lives and works in the island of Aruba.

Brenda Rodriguez (Argnetina)

Brenda Rodriguez was born in Buenos Aires. His training is multidisciplinary. She studied design, plastic arts and set design. Lover and practitioner of movement and dance. Passionate about water as a means of expression in her artistic search. He exhibited in galleries of B.A. and participated in biennials in countries like Uruquay, France, and USA. He performed experimental and performative dance shows as an integral part of the Grupo Blanco. He built the Madretierra art space on the outskirts of BA, where different disciplines of art converge.

Programme Notes

Emlyn Stam (viola)

Sherry Grant (piano)

1. Moshe Knoll (Venezuela/USA) - Bachianas Venezolanas

We live in an era when all of the world’s cultures have met and interacted. This is much more obvious in the field of music. Our Twenty-First Century has already seen many efforts to merge and synthesize musical styles originating from cultures that are both geographically and spiritually very distant from one another. One of my main preoccupations has always been to prove and establish the enduring validity and relevance of the so-called Western Classical Music Tradition to our contemporary world, for all peoples. The most exalted Masters of the historical Western past saw themselves as the founders of a worldwide community of kindred spirits, transcending all cultural, national and credal traditions. Closer to our time, I have always felt great admiration for the work of both Heitor Villa-Lobos and Astor Piazzolla, and the one aspect of their work that has inspired me the most, is how both immortal masters effortlessly and naturally assimilated the musical grammar and syntax of Johann Sebastian Bach into their own Latin-American sound world.

There is a universalist and a timeless quality in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, that makes it compatible with any other genre of music one can think of. Bach was an encyclopedist of all the Art-Music that preceded him, and deliberately left models, archetypes of composition for successive generations to learn from. We are not denying the particularism so present in his art. Bach is very German, and very Lutheran, and yet his music speaks to people of all religious persuasions, of all nations, for all time. As a native of Venezuela, Moshe Knoll absorbed by osmosis, as a child and as a teenager, the various folk styles of the lively music that resounded around him. As a lifelong student of the piano he has lived with Bach for over 5 decades, and intend to continue doing so until the end. It was only natural for Knoll, a Venezuelan-born, resident of New York City, and lifelong devotee of Bach, to try his hand at this particular synthesis of styles and cultural influences. It is Knoll's sincere hope that both performers and listeners of his music will receive a renewed sense of both the transcendental meaningfulness of life, and of our existential need to fight against chaos in the universe.

2. Barbara Varassi Pega - From the roof

From the roof is a piece in which Barbara Varassi Pega integrate different aspects of the music I love, create and perform. Its main features derive from traditional Western art music composition combined with elements and stylistic devices inherited from the tango tradition. The composition had its first draft in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where I currently reside, and was finalised in a beautiful apartment in the center of the vibrating and inspiring city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The piece somehow captures the impressions and feelings I had from the roof of this apartment, from which I had a 360° view. The diverse landscapes of the city, different architecture styles, domes, other roofs, cables, birds, sounds, aereals, are all representative of our mixed, exuberant and chaotic culture.

3. Marius Diaz - Aria of Koroglu

Aria of Koroglu is a piece inspired by the Köroglu Epic, a heroic legend prominent in the oral traditions of Turkic peoples. The action takes place in Azerbaijan during the 16th and 17th centuries. The score uses the libretto by Mammed Said Ordubadi and Habib Ismaylov in both English and its original Azerbaijani language. This duality, supported by contrasts, reflects the actions and thoughts of Koroglu, who laments being far from his beloved Nigar and seeks to defeat his enemy, the tyrant and oppressor Khan. Furthermore, melodic quotes from the homonymous opera by composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov are presented transfigured and with a contemporary sound, blending serial, modal, microtonal, and spectral elements. Additionally, melodic quotes from the homonymous opera by composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov are presented transfigured and with a contemporary sound, blending serial, modal, microtonal, and spectral elements. Its original version for baritone and ensemble won the Hajibeyli International Composition Competition and the NMGCS International Competition in Azerbaijan. Moreover, it was performed on November 5, 2021, at the Bruno Walter Auditorium of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. This version for viola and piano, commissioned by Alto Nova Duo, assigns the viola the role of the singer, creating a vocalized instrumental work, while the piano synthesizes the density of the chamber discourse.

4. Daniel Rojas - Bygone Angels for Viola and Piano

Bygone Angels is a homage to the people, thoughts, emotions, and events that we encounter along the way that serendipitously happen to be there to support us through a challenge or difficult period. These “angels” are present only temporarily and without expectation of reward or acknowledgement. However, their impact is perennial.

The motif, a descending fourth followed by an ascending octave and then a series of stepwise intervals, comes from one of my teenage melodic experimentations which still haunts me to this today. The milonga campestre, a gentler sub-genre of tango, informs a significant proportion of the accompaniment’s identity yet avoids being absorbed wholly by this genre. The ongoing undulation speaks of the landscape of our sentiments, or emotional geography as the journey of life

And given that gratitude begets further gratitude this homage serves to thank everyone who has challenged me to be more consequential in society, and as I bring the many blessings in to the future.

Bygone Angels was commissioned by Alto Nova Duo.

5. Luis Saglie (Chile/Australia): The Defiant Magpie for viola and piano (2024)

This concert work is part of a lineage of pieces by the composer that draw primary inspiration from birds, specifically those native to Australia and their distinctive calls. The Defiant Magpie vividly depicts the Australian Magpie during its mating season and its defiant attempts to deter potential threats and oncoming danger. The victims of these sometimes passive, sometimes violent, and sometimes fatal attacks range from other birds to cyclists and unsuspecting people who set out for a pleasant jog or relaxing walk, only to find themselves anxiously deviating from their paths in an act of self-protection from the “Defiant Magpie”. This work comes to life through its persistent pulsing rhythms, extensive chromaticism, and quartal harmonies, all hinting at a vivid and unstable free tonal character. Adding to the extensive palette of musical colors is the exploration and use of an extended registral spectrum in both the viola and the piano. The texture of the work is defined by both instruments taking on the roles of primary element against accompaniment, accompanimental backing for the other soloist, as well as through an intricate interplay between both soloists, challenged at all technical levels. This composition is a vivid example of musical painting and storytelling.

6. Polo Piatti - ‘Los Locos’ for viola and piano

This composition was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, pianist Sherry Grant and violist Emlyn Stam to be premiered at the 49th International Viola Congress in Campinas, Brazil in 2024. The title 'Los Locos' means ‘The Crazy Ones' in Spanish which indicates the rapid, energetic, fiery nature of the work and the way it should be performed. This is a difficult piece to perform due to its intricate rhythms, high speed and dynamic changes, making it a quite virtuosic work. The work belongs to the “nuevo tango” genre, that has become very popular in Argentina since the 1990s. The main intention while composing this piece was to achieve a good balance between the two instruments while performing as a duet, with each one becoming the carrier of the melodic line and the accompaniment taking it in turns. By doing this, the piano is given an independent and more prominent voice of its own, avoiding it to be relegated to a mere background, as it is so often the case when performing as part of a duet.

7. Andrián Pertout: - Esboço de Ipanema for Viola and Pianoforte, no. 486 (2023)

‘Esboço de Ipanema’ or ‘Sketch of Ipanema’ represents a Hommage à Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927-1994), and so the work serves as a tribute to Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger, and singer Antônio Carlos Jobim (“considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian music” and the ‘father of bossa nova’) and adopts an algorithmic re-composition (employing a set of algorithms, or automatons to develop the melodic and rhythmic elements) of his iconic 1962 Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song Garota de Ipanema (The Girl from Ipanema). “Jobim internationalized bossa nova and, with the help of important American artists, merged it with jazz in the 1960s to create a new sound, with popular success,” and today Garota de Ipanema (featuring lyrcis by Brazilian poet, diplomat, lyricist, essayist, musician, singer, and playwright Vinícius de Moraes) is “believed to be the second-most recorded pop song in history, after Yesterday by The Beatles. ‘Esboço de Ipanema’ presents a musical abstraction of the original tune, and in accord with the ideals of abstract art its general aims of reproducing an illusion of visible reality, the work juxtaposes a fragmented melody adorned by an altered and therefore now subsidiary harmonic sequence that frame moto perpetuo-infused ostinatos within a rhythmic sequence developed around repeating yet contrasting ABA arch-form structures of rhythmic density.

8. Martin Musaubach - Pa Los Que Se Fueron

This is a small Tango piece that tries to share a bit of the emotions emanating from a journey that started almost 20 years ago in the Barrio Hipódromo of La Plata and ended up looking at the Pacific Ocean from the Far East. Being a foreigner, the composer had the opportunity of meeting people from the world over, which made me realize that my emotions and feelings about leaving, which I thought were unique to me, were in fact quite universal. This is indeed a very personal piece. As such, this musical story ends (so far) in a very happy place, which is what this beautiful island of Taiwan is for me. The whole thing is inspired (hopefully) by Horacio Salgán, Aníbal Troilo, Osvaldo Pugliese, and sprinkled with Piazzollisms here and there, which means that from a technical point of view, there’s nothing original in it. Basically, a Tango with very big tempo variations that begins in a minor key and ends in a major key, nothing more, or less than that. Starting from the dissonance in the pizzicato of the Viola to the big and flashy variations at the end, the piece doesn’t try to be original or unique in any way. It is a tribute to the music and to the way of being in the world that made me who I am today.

9. Silvina Milstein - que llega y parte dorada espumante del agua… (that flows and ebbs as gilded foam…)

As the suggestive ink marks in ancient Zen scrolls, the musical gestures of this open-ended prelude are softly delineated and fluid. Do the percussive rhythms of its
opening refrain conjure up a lone candombe drummer; or do they evoke the small shoulder-drum used in Noh theatre? The refrain’s plucked rhythms return in many versions, each time framing short-lived lyrical episodes, in which shards of melodies evocative of the vernacular music of the Río de la Plata manifest to swiftly dissolve into the translucent background provided by the piano. The two extremely quiet chords that make most of the accompaniment are a borrowing from Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Contemplation of silence’. Tamar’s book of poems entitled ‘La niña dorada’ motivated me to engage with the Río de la Plata as a depository of musical memories. At the very end of the piece, the viola’s tentative lyrical meanderings eventually gel into a line in a Piazzolla’s song that says ‘Chiquilín dame un ramo de voz…’, then abruptly we are confronted with silence.

10. Jean Kleeb - Ritual para a terra (Ritual for the Earth)

The composition Ritual para a terra is inspired by two Brazilian poems: a dialogue between the beauties of home and the environmental problems of the earth: “Canção do Exilio” (Exile Song) by Goncalves Dias and “Ritual” by Astrid Cabral. "Canção do exílio" is a poem written by the Brazilian Romantic author Gonçalves Dias
(1823-1864) in 1843, when he was in Portugal studying Law at the University of Coimbra. The poem is a famous example of the first phase of Brazilian Romanticism. It was based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ballad Mignon. "Canção do exílio" is one of the most famous poems of Brazilian literature, being referenced and/or parodied by may other Brazilian authors. The lines "Nossos bosques têm mais vida,/Nossa vida mais amores" (Our forests have more life, Our lives have more love) were later included in the national anthem of Brazil as a tribute to Dias. Gonçalves Dias was also playwright, ethnographer, lawyer, linguist and researcher of Native Brazilian languages and folklore. He decided to return to Brazil in 1864. However, the ship was wrecked on the Bay of Cumã, near the shores of Guimarães, Maranhão. All the passengers but Dias survived the tragedy; he was sleeping in his cabin belowdecks and did not wake up in time to see what was happening; thus he drowned. In a way, some lines from his poem became reality: May God never allow, That I die before I return. “Ritual” is a poem written by Astrid Cabral (*1938). She is a novelist, critic, environmentalist and diplomat, and one of the most eminent contemporary poets in Brazil. She was born in Manaus, Amazonas and her work is characterized by an emphasis on the flora and fauna of her native region. Because of her frequent emphasis on nature, Cabral's writing often showcases her interest in environmental protection and activism. In the poem “Ritual” from the book “Lição de Alice” (1986) the poetic voice realizes that her habit of writing is a participant in the destruction of nature. Cabral’s poems make readers think about the current situation on earth.