The last concert of the criaSons Festival took place at the Teatro Nacional São Carlos, with Pedro Caldeira Cabral, on the theme “Tenses and Moods of Portuguese Citara“, where the Citara was the queen.
Pedro Caldeira Cabral took all his mastery to the National Theater of São Carlos, where he performed with the Lopes-Graça Quartet, several works for Portuguese zither.
Luís Pacheco Cunha, thanked the audience for attending this concert of the 3rd festival criaSons, a festival that lasted for several years, started in 2020, and that due to the pandemic, was being postponed, this being the fifth concert in São Carlos, the Festival will still have 2 more concerts in Ferreira do Zêzere and Porto.
The concert opened with the Lopes-Graça Quartet, with “Variações Bitemáticas” by Alejandro Erlich Oliva from 1948, Pedro Caldeira Cabral altered the established program and later explained that “… what we play is not exactly what is written, and there is a reason for that, after the beautiful introduction of the String Quartet, it gets a little strange, we went completely solo ….” he added, “another reason, one of the historical references of the zither in the 18th century in the transition to the 19th century, establishes an interesting relationship here with the Teatro São Carlos, the relationship with the modinhas, and in the use of the zither in the accompaniment of the modinhas, we have reports mainly from Brazil, but also some from Portugal, I thought it was an interesting part of the repertoire to make this relationship, this two pieces we play, is a modinha by an anonymous 19th-century author, published around 1830 and one by João Francisco Leal, a Brazilian composer“.
Followed by the themes “Dança das Sombras“, “Gestos“, “Momentos“, “Castro D’Aire” and “Baile dos Caretos“, “Astoriana” a small tribute to Astor Piazzolla, in the company of the Quartet, with Duncan Fox on double bass, or solo, the beauty of the themes dazzled the audience that filled the entrance hall of the theatre.
The following theme, composed by Pedro Caldeira Cabral for Portuguese sitar, in homage to Carlos Paredes, at the invitation of INATEL in 1995, to create a piece for orchestra and zither on the theme “Verdes Anos”, orchestrated by Pedro Osório, however, the piece disappeared, later Pedro Caldeira Cabral, converted that piece, to something more autonomous that he called “Fantasia Verdes Anos“.
The concert ended with an absolute premiere, “Fantasia Bicéfala” for the 3rd Festival ciaSons, for Portuguese sitar and string quintet, by Pedro Caldeira Cabral and Alejandro Erlich Oliva.
Pedro Caldeira Cabral is an exceptional figure in today’s European classical music landscape. The instrumental repertoire of this artist includes practically all periods and styles of Iberian and European music. From medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, to contemporary music, not forgetting traditional Portuguese music. Director, composer, researcher and musician, he began his professional career at the age of 16 playing various string and wind instruments. His main instrument is the Portuguese guitar, in which he reached a high level of mastery. Since 1969, he has sought to develop his own style as a composer, based on the soloistic tradition of the Portuguese Guitar, incorporating original techniques and elements resulting from the study of ancient instruments from the cultured and popular traditions of Mediterranean Europe, working with Karel Goyvaerts, Constança Capdeville, José Alberto Gil and Jorge Peixinho. As a performer, he has expanded the guitar’s solo repertoire, making transcriptions of works by Bach, Weiss, Scarlatti, Seixas, among others, and publicly presenting new original works by contemporary authors. He has carried out research in the field of traditional music having collaborated with Dr. Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira in the second edition of “Os Instrumentos Musicalis Populares Portugueses”.
Since 1970, he has given concerts as a soloist in the main venues and festivals in Europe, the United States of America, Macau and Brazil. Pedro Caldeira Cabral has given conferences and seminars on musical themes in Europe (France, England, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Turkey) and the USA He pre-produced and directed the Portuguese Guitar Festival at EXPO 98. In 1999 it was edited the book “A Guitarra Portuguesa” of his authorship, this being the first monographic work on the origins and historical evolution, organological study, and repertoire of the national instrument.
Pedro Caldeira Cabral was joined on stage by Duncan Fox on bass, the Lopez-Graça Quartet, Eliot Lawson and Luís Pacheco Cunha, on violin, Isabel Pimentel on Violeta and Catherine Strynckk on cello.
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