WNMD 2025 · CONCERT 2
Orchestral Mysteries / Mistérios Orquestrais
30-05-2025 · 21h00
Centro Cultural de Belém, Grande Auditório
Lisbon
Bilheteira · Box Office (CCB)
Pedro Neves · © Perseu Mandillo
LISBON METROPOLITAN ORCHESTRA
ORQUESTRA METROPOLITANA DE LISBOA
Pedro Neves · conductor
Camila Mandillo · soprano
CLAUDE VIVIER (Canada, 1948–1983)
Lonely Child (1980), 17’
JINWOOK JUNG (South Korea, 1994) YCA
Unerasing (2018), 10’
ISCM Wallonia-Brussels Section submission
JOÃO MADUREIRA (Portugal, 1971)
Greeting (2010), 8’
SONIA BO (Italy, 1960)
Variazioni di luce (2022), 11’
Individual submission
GYÖRGY LIGETI (Hungary, 1923-2006)
Mysteries of the Macabre (1996), 9’
YCA · ISCM Young Composers Award candidate
[ENG]
The opening concert of the ISCM World New Music Days 2025 features works for voice and orchestra, with soprano Camila Mandillo performing alongside the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, conducted by Pedro Neves. The programme with voice includes Lonely Child (1980), a deeply lyrical and introspective piece for soprano and orchestra by Canadian composer Claude Vivier, and Mysteries of the Macabre, a work that brings together three arias – veering between sarcasm and absurdity – from György Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre, in an arrangement by Elgar Howarth.
Additionally, the programme presents three 21st-century works:
Unerasing (2018) by young South Korean composer Jinwook Jung, nominated for the ISCM Young Composers Award, a piece that musically reflects on the erasure of colonial history and, through its title, proposes an “un-erasing” that exposes the colonial violence nationalisms seek to obscure.
Greeting, a serene and luminous work by Portuguese composer João Madureira, conceived as a gesture of gratitude.
And finally, Variazioni di luce by Italian composer Sonia Bo, which draws inspiration from a theme in Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, transforming classical material through a contemporary lens of brightness and energy.
This concert offers the opportunity to hear a leading orchestra, whose remarkable journey has left an indelible mark on the Portuguese musical landscape since its foundation nearly 35 years ago, here conducted by the masterful hands of its artistic director and principal conductor, Pedro Neves.
The young soprano Camila Mandillo is one of the most promising voices of her generation, known for her vocal expressiveness and interpretative maturity. She was recently named a Rising Star for the upcoming season by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO), establishing herself on the international classical and contemporary music scene.
[PT]
O concerto de abertura do World New Music Days 2025 inclui obras para voz e orquestra, com a soprano Camila Mandillo a interpretar, ao lado da Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa sob a direcção de Pedro Neves, Lonely Child, de 1980, do compositor canadiano Claude Vivier e Mysteries of the Macabre, uma peça que junta três árias – entre o sarcasmo e o nonsense – da ópera de György Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre, rearranjadas por Elgar Howarth. Seguem-se três obras do século XXI: Unerasing, do jovem compositor Jinwook Jung (nomeada para o ISCM Young Composers Award), uma peça de 2018 em que se reflecte musicalmente sobre o apagamento do passado colonialista, propondo no título um “desapagamento” que ponha a nú a violência colonial que os nacionalismos tentam esconder; depois é tempo de Greeting, obra calma e luminosa de João Madureira, em jeito de agradecimento; e finalmente Variazioni di luce, uma peça da compositora italiana Sonia Bo que usa um tema da Sinfonia nº 40 de Mozart como fonte de inspiração.
Este concerto é a oportunidade para ouvir uma orquestra de referência, com um percurso de deixou marcas indeléveis no panorama musical português desde a sua fundação há quase 35 anos, e que aqui conduzida pelas mãos de mestre do seu director artístico e maestro titular Pedro Neves.
A jovem soprano Camila Mandillo é uma das vozes mais promissoras da sua geração, destacando-se pela expressividade vocal e maturidade interpretativa. Foi recentemente nomeada Rising Star para a próxima temporada da European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO), afirmando-se no panorama internacional da música clássica e contemporânea.
PROGRAMME NOTES
CLAUDE VIVIER (Canada, 1948–1983)
Lonely Child (1980)
— Lonely Child is a long song of solitude. For the musical construction I wanted to have total power for expression, for musical development on the piece I was composing without using chords, harmony or counterpoint. I wanted to work up to very homophonic music that would be transformed into one single melody, which would be “intervalized.” I had already composed a first melody heard at the beginning of the piece for dancers. I subsequently developed this melody in five “intervalized” melodic fragments that is by adding one note below each note, which creates intervals—thirds, fifths, minor seconds, major seconds etc. If the frequencies of each interval are added, a timbre is created. Thus, there are no longer any chords, and the entire orchestra is then transformed into a timbre. The roughness and the intensity of this timbre depend on the base interval. Musically speaking, there was only one thing I needed to control, which automatically, somehow, would create the rest of the music, that is, great beams of color!
(Claude Vivier)
JINWOOK JUNG (South Korea, 1994) YCA
Unerasing (2018)
ISCM Wallonia-Brussels Section submission
— For the purpose of nationalism, many countries and cultures in the modern world try to “erase” the negative images of their colonialism from history books and media. Through this work, I try to bring back poetically and “un-erase” the shame that each society tries to hide and lie. In the piece, my compositional purpose is not only to embody the spatial and temporal perspective based on colour but also to try to convey the message hidden in the shadows indirectly.
JOÃO MADUREIRA (Portugal, 1971)
Greeting (2010)
— Greeting is a short piece for classical orchestra, composed in response to a friendly challenge from Piñeiro Nagy and premiered in 2010 at the Estoril International Music Festival. On occasion of the opening concert of the World New Music Days 2025, I'm listening to it right now and it sounds strangely contemporary... Greeting is not a nostalgic piece, but it undoubtedly carries within it an awareness of Europe's musical past, which, paradoxical as it may seem, belongs to our present age, if we consider a temporal dimension beyond an epochology, which tends to artificially circumscribe the artistic phenomenon. This awareness of the historical continuum as something that inhabits each one of us shapes the entire musical discourse of my short piece. I wrote Greeting aware that the European musical avant-garde, with all its academicism and prejudices, has always given way to an inclusive mode of seeing musical reality, in which apparently irreconcilable elements integrate, in the end, the very same artistic phenomenon.
SONIA BO (Italy, 1960)
Variazioni di luce (2022)
Individual submission
— The I Pomeriggi Musicali orchestra in Milan asked me to write a piece with a very famous theme. I chose the first theme of the Symphony No. 40 by Mozart. I decided not to use it as a theme for variations but to quote it at some points, using very different instrumentation and cutting it to reduce it till the starting cell. The other musical sections that prepare or connect the quotations are all constructed upon melodic lines of the symphony's first movement. The piece is also connected to the theme of the ISCM festival: as water is one of the most important sources of human beings, masterpieces of the past still make our musical work grow and develop. Our thirst for music research can find great support and power in a deep reflection on an evergreen past.
GYÖRGY LIGETI (Hungary, 1923-2006)
Mysteries of the Macabre (1996)
— I composed my opera Le Grand Macabre from 1974 to 1997. The Mysteries of the Macabre are arrangements of three coloratura arias of the chief of the “Secret Political Police” which have been arranged (beautifully!) for chamber ensemble by Elgar Howarth. My friend Howarth had conducted the world premiere of the opera in Stockholm in 1978 and some of the further productions. The half-nonsense text is an immediate – however more accurate – continuation of the idea of my works Aventures and Nouvelles Aventures, but there is no chromatics in the music any more.
(György Ligeti)