Monday 4 December 2017

Concerto first: Pedro Da Silva & OOTS premiere work for Portuguese guitar

Pedro Da Silva (Photo Elias Wessel)
Pedro Da Silva (Photo Elias Wessel)
The Portuguese guitar is an instrument associated with the traditional music from Fado in Portugal, but the New York-based Portuguese composer and guitarist Pedro Henriques da Silva takes the beyond that role using a multitude of unusual techniques and sonorities. Da Silva will be premiering his own concerto for Portuguese guitar (the first for the instrument) with the Orchestra of the Swan (OOTS), conductor David Curtis, at Stratford ArtsHouse in Stratford-upon-Avon on 5 December 2017. The concerto is part of a programme New York comes to Stratford which also includes Aaron Copland's Music for Movies and Music for the Theatre and Clouds for piano and orchestra by the Argentine-born, New York-based composer Lucia Caruso, who takes the solo role and who also happens to be Pedro da Silva's wife.

Caruso and Da Silva are the founders of the Manhattan Camerata, an ensemble which a style based on classical music techniques and instruments, incorporating improvisation and elements from different cultures around the world, integrating world instruments in a variety of styles and genres. Da Silva's new concerto reflects these techniques, as he incorporates influences from Portuguese music, Bulgarian rhythms, as well as some scales and French Impressionism, as well as using classical guitar playing techniques, and innovations such as an electric bow, something normally used on electric guitar.

Further details from the Orchestra of the Swan website.

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