The Portuguese Symphony Orchestra (OSP), directed by its titular conductor, Joana Carneiro, today premieres ‘Cassini — for the Symphonic Orchestra’, a work commissioned to the composer Luís Tinoco, to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
The concert is held at 5:00 pm in the large auditorium of the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon and, in addition to the absolute premiere of Luís Tinoco’s play, the program includes William Walton’s Concerto for Cello, in which he is a soloist Johannes Moser, and Richard Strauss’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’.
Luís Tinoco said: “It was with great happiness that I accepted the challenge to join this moment of celebration in the life of an orchestra with so many musicians and friends that I admire.”
On the composition ‘Cassini – for Symphony Orchestra’, an order from the National Theater of S. Carlos (TNSC), Tinoco explained that “the title collects inspiration in the space project ‘Cassini-Huygens’, which in October 1997 sent a probe unmanned flight to Saturn on a two-decade voyage that culminated in September 2017 with a planned dive into the planet’s atmosphere, causing the mill to be destroyed to avoid possible contamination with terrestrial micro-organisms in the event of a collision with any of the moons of Saturn “.
“In his long journey, Cassini flew over Venus and Jupiter, discovered new satellites, studied potentially habitable environments on the moons of Saturn and collected dazzling images that continue to be revealed to us today after the mission is completed,” continued the composer. highlighted the day in July 2013 when “the spacecraft returned its camera to Earth, obtaining a photograph that revealed the complete set of the planet Saturn, its rings and several satellites, in addition to including the planets Earth, Mars and Venus“.
On this day of July 2013, the scientific community invited people to look at the sky at the time of photography and smile at the camera.
“The idea of a space device that cuts through Saturn’s rings and ‘suicides’, plunging into its atmosphere, has inspired a song that begins quietly and with a slow cadence, exploring more static sonorities that gradually stir and intensify as if matching the music with the Cassini crossing through the rings of the planet,” explained the composer.
According to Tinoco, “just like this wonderful genius that has traveled for two decades to probe mysteries of the past” and open “clues to the future, a symphony orchestra is also a space of discovery, exploration of great music from the past and laboratory for those who write music today, probing and researching some of the present sound paths. ”
The composer performs, within the current symphonic season, an artistic residency at the TNSC, of which OSP is one of the artistic bodies, in which, besides a workshop to new composers, has presented new compositions.
OSP was created in 1993 and has been presenting its own symphonic activity and a regular program of concerts.
The discography of OSP has two CDs, one under the direction of its first titular conductor, Álvaro Cassuto, and the second one of the responsibility of Julia Jones, who was also its titular master from 2008 to 2011, having been surrendered by the current conductor, Joana Sheep.
In the position of titular teacher, were also José Ramón Encinar (1999/2001) and Zoltán Peskó (2001/2004).
