01|05|23 > The Strength (The Power) of the Word – A Song to José Mário Branco
May 1st – 6:00 pm at Teatro Maria Matos
“I am Portuguese, born in Porto, petit-bourgeois by origin, the son of primary school teachers, variety artist, popular composer, sorcerer’s apprentice.” This is how José Mário Branco presented himself.
He was one of the outstanding personalities of our music and our culture, as a composer, arranger, singer-songwriter and music producer. A history made of songs, struggles, values.
A man who, saying he was not very social, was socially intervening, and his artistic impact was felt in the record field and in live performances, musical or theatrical.
As in a poem, we are one person when we enter a song by José Mário Branco and a completely different one when we leave it, because in his songs there is no neutrality, they are the result of a constant work of the pulleys of thought, little soldiers playing in the gardens of the gods and the name of a linden tree on the avenue in the gardens of the Palácio de Cristal.
On the 1st of May 2023, the Maria Matos Theater will be the stage for a show evoking José Mário Branco, through the recreation of his work by Canto Nono, a group of eight voices singing “à cappella”, with which he maintained a complicity and an artistic coexistence of twenty years.
The word was a constant in all of José Mário Branco’s work, its strength and power stand out because, beyond a simple linguistic unit, it is endowed with a profound meaning and truth. Sung words are the saint and password of Canto Nono and it is also with the truth that they try to transmit them, to make them crystalline in the verb and in the intention, consumable, but not disposable so that, intertwined, they acquire the indispensable hardness to face everyday life.
They are not going to make this show, “Canto Nono” and José Mário Branco, the Crossing of the Desert.
They will walk around “Arcádia” giving a “Recado ao Porto”,, scrutinizing “A Noite”. There will be news about “Etelvina” and her “Soldadinho”, and also about a friend tired of “Remendos e Côdeas”, because these are “As Contas de Deus”. They will also say “Do que Um Homem É Capaz” so that it is understood that it is singing “Mudam os Tempos e as Vontades”. And in the end, who knows, maybe each of us became a little bit, of a sorcerer’s apprentice.
Canto Nono are: Dalila Teixeira, Joana Castro, Diana Gonçalves, Daniela Leite Castro, Lucas Lopes, Jorge Barata, Rui Rodrigues and Fernando Pinheiro Arrangements by Amélia Muge, António José Martins, Canto Nono, Filipe Raposo, José Mário Branco, José Manuel David and Tomás Pimentel.
Always confirm with the concert hall or promoter the conditions of access, confirmation of the date or time, tickets place of sale, price, and availability.
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