Orchestra ensures a diversified program – STATE SECRETARY FOR CULTURE AND THE CREATIVE ECONOMY

Posted On: June 3, 2023

June brings classics, debut female composers and chamber music

Text: Alexandre Freire / Editing: Lúcio Flávio

The Claudio Santoro National Theater Symphony Orchestra (OSTNCS), equipment of the Secretariat for Culture and Creative Economy (Secec), took great care in the diversity of content in June. “We will have masterpieces of classical music, with Mahler and Strauss, premieres in Brasília by female composers, Grazyna Bacewicz [1909-1969] and Alice Ho [1999]solo trombone, piano four hands, voice and violin and a conductor directing concert and chamber music,” announces conductor Cláudio Cohen.

There will be four concerts at 8 p.m. and a chamber music concert on Sunday (6/11). Admission to the concerts is free, on a first-come, first-served basis and subject to capacity. The performances take place at the Plínio Marcos Theater, at the Eixo Cultural Ibero-Americano (formerly Funarte). The first concert in June features classical pieces by authors known to the orchestra’s audience and welcomes the French soprano Laetitia Grimaldi, who has already performed in Brasilia. “She’s an excellent singer,” comments Cohen, who led her as a soloist in the classical, Summer timeopera Porgy and Bessby George Gershwin (1898-1937) at “Yacht in Concert” in 2021.

chamber concert

On the 11th, a Sunday, there will be a performance by the new Liberarte Trio, made up of two members of the Symphony Orchestra, Renata Menezes, on clarinet, and Francisco Orru, on cello, and a guest, Russian pianist Anastasiya Evsina. “This is the second performance in the ‘OSTNCS Chamber Concerts’ series, a tradition we seek to create,” says Cohen.

The repertoire includes the Argentine composer and pianist Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000), considered one of the greatest of the 20th century, baptized “Schubert de la Pampa” for his conservative, tonal and romantic style, and the pianists Chopin ( 1810 -1849) and Schumann (1810-1856). The “heart of the program”, according to Evsina’s expression, is the “Trio op. 114 for clarinet, cello and piano”, by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). “It is one of the composer’s last works, very intense, deep and lyrical at the same time, beginning with a solitary and melancholic cello voice and evolving in four movements to an epic finale”, describes the pianist based in Brazil.

The Liberarte Trio, whose name is inspired by a heteronymous text by the poet Fernando Pessoa, was formed this year, but the project dates back to 2017. “Renata is a friend of Francisco and his colleague in the orchestra. She was the one who had the idea of having us play together, she was the initiator of our collaboration”, reveals the pianist, whose residence outside Brazil has postponed the start of the presentations for some time.

Of the Brahms work they will present, Menezes says that in the early 1890s the German composer was determined to stop writing. He changed his mind when he attended a concert by fellow clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld (1856-1907) and, influenced by the interpretation, composed four songs for the instrument, including one that the trio would play in Brasilia. “It was a chance for us clarinettistslike, that Brahms met Richard. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have these masterpieces,” the Liberarte member rambled on.

: Soprano Laetitia Grimaldi

: Renata (L), Anastasiya and Francisco

: Darrin C. Milling, photo Ana Paula Lazari

In the concert on the 13th, it is the public’s turn to have contact with the work of the American soloist Darrin C. Milling on the bass trombone during the 2nd movement for instrument and chamber orchestra with strings, harp and timpani in the piece by Trent Johnson The link that binds. This concert will also feature pieces by American composers Patrick McCarty (1928-2015) and Ian Deterling (1990). Milling has performed solo with several professional orchestras and symphony groups in Brazil and abroad.

The following concert features the work of Polish violinist and composer Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) and is conducted by Mariana Menezes, from Uberaba, Minas Gerais, recognized as one of the youngest conductors in the spotlight in the current Brazilian music scene, performing on the podium of great orchestras, such as the State Symphony Orchestra of São Paulo (OSESP) and the Orchestra of the Municipal Theater of São Paulo, among others.

“It will be a very special concert because it begins with a work by Mozart, with solos by the violinist of the orchestra. Then we also have the overture from a composer who lived in the last century. This work exudes a wonderful energy. Finally, we will perform a symphony by Brahms, this romantic composer so famous for his melodies and his writing”, invites the conductor. During the current 2023 season, Menezes will lead philharmonic orchestras such as the Philharmonic Orchestra of Goiás, the Paraná Symphony Orchestra and the São Pedro Theater Symphony Orchestra.

: Conductor Mariana Menezes

: Nan Qi and Durval Cesetti

: conductor André Muniz

three forests

The month of June will end with a concert whose compositions refer to the forests of Canada, China and Brazil, with a piano solo for four hands. The conductor of this show, maestro André Muniz, says that Through the Forest of Songs“perhaps one of the most multi-ethnic concerts”.

Composer Alice Ho (1960) is Chinese and Canadian and brings this multiculturalism to her work. André Muniz is from Pernambuco, professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). Muniz explains that the concert sets up an allegory that juxtaposes the Canadian biome, whose icy aridity is full of life, the bamboo forests of China, which evoke legends, and the Amazon rainforest, “that heart of the world that was so much attacked and which we must preserve”.

On the Brazilian side, the elegy for the Amazon summons Villa-Lobos. Muniz contextualizes: “our ‘Indian in a coat’, as we called him, produces a sound that often refers to natural elements, like the night, native sounds, an eminently Brazilian piece”.

Soloist Durval Cesetti, who shares the four-hand keyboard solo with Nan Qi, agrees with Maestro Muniz. “It is not only a work of great beauty, but also very significant, due to its multicultural aspect and its defense of the environment”. The Brasilia-born pianist says this gig is very special for him, who hasn’t played in the capital since before the pandemic.

Calendar

6/6

Richard Strauss, “The Last Four Songs”

Gustav Mahler, “Symphony No. 4”

Soloist Laetitia Grimaldi (Soprano)

Master Claudio Cohen

Plinio Marcos Theatre, 8 p.m.

6/11

OSTNCS chamber concert

Liberarte Trio

Renata Menezes, clarinet; Francisco Orru, cello; Anastasia Evsina, piano

Guastavino, Carlos, “Las Presencias, Rosita Iglesias for clarinet and piano”