The Portuguese Symphony Orchestra (OSP), led by its titular conductor, Joana Carneiro, premiered on Sunday “Cassini — for the Symphonic Orchestra”, a work commissioned by 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 besides 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 “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” by Richard Strauss.
Speaking to Lusa, 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 the Symphonic Orchestra”, an order from the National Theater of S. Carlos (TNSC), Tinoco explained that “the title collects inspiration in the Cassini-Huygens space project, which in October 1997 sent a unmanned probe to Saturn on a two-decade voyage that culminated in September 2017 with a planned dive into the planet’s atmosphere, causing the destruction of the planet to avoid possible contamination with terrestrial micro-organisms in the event of a collision with some 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 towards Earth, obtaining a photograph that revealed the complete set of the planet Saturn, its rings and several satellites, and includes 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 in the scope of the current symphonic season an artistic residence in the TNSC, of which OSP is one of the artistic bodies, in which, in addition to a workshop to new composers, has presented new compositions.
In February last year the OSP, under the direction of conductor Pedro Neves, premiered the Tinoco Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, also an order from TNSC.
Last June, the composer released a CD with orchestral works, “The Blue Voice of the Water”, which included the works “Before Spring”, “The Blue Voice of the Water” “Frisland” and the Concerto for Cello, which the composer dedicates to the cellist Filipe Quaresma, who participated in the recording.
Luís Tinoco has often seen his works premiered across borders by international orchestras. In 2014, “FrisLand” was premiered by the Seattle Symphony, in a concert directed by the French conductor Ludovic Morlot.
Luís Tinoco is a professor at the Lisbon School of Music, artistic director of the Young Musicians Prize, and since 2005, his music has been published in the United Kingdom by the University of York Music Press.
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).
