Antena 2 Concert | Cardo-Roxo

Red Thistle

Carmina Repas Gonçalves, Soprano and Viola da Gamba

Antony Fernandes, Baritone, Säckpipa, Low Whistle, Harmonic Flute

18 March '15 |    CGD Auditorium - ISEG

19hours l duration 70 minutes

CO-PRODUCTION concertos.antena2@rtp.pt | Tel. 21 382 00 15

Red Thistle  is a duo consisting of Antony Fernandes and Carmina Repas Gonçalves , a couple of musicians living in Porto. This project was born in 2012 from the desire to reproduce and bring to the public traditional Portuguese music with a new perspective.   Red Thistle  proposes an approach based on listening, a taste for silence and the natural volume of the instruments used without amplification or other artificial effects. The aim is to grant delicacy, to cherish and to amplify the beauty and simplicity of traditional Portuguese music by exploiting to the maximum the resources of the instruments and the space in which they are found. Along with the contemplative dimension and starting from the didactic objective and the rapprochement of traditional music to humanity, they make a very careful choice of the melodies that come to them through audio, video and written collections on which they build arrangements that respect their sound and emotional characteristics. Their songs are thus original and modern in the sense that they arrange and embellish them according to our current ear but appeal to the antiquity and ancestry of our tradition in the sense that they do not alter (as much as possible) the characteristics of the collected melodies. Thus, the audience is invited to travel through Portuguese soundscapes and, who knows, to listen to melodies from their childhood, while enjoying the pleasure of detail and the surroundings of the sound space in which they find themselves.

Alvorada

The music we offer you is the result of two years of research and reflection on our oldest musical traditions and the way they survive to this day, whether through audio, video or transcriptions or through living traditions. Thus, this album reflects our first conscious contact with the enormous diversity and complexity of our traditional music; from instrumental to vocal music, from party music to work music, from Madeira to Trás-os-Montes, we sought to understand and highlight our musical identity. Aware of the enormous responsibility of using and modifying this repertoire in our own image, we have endeavored not to misrepresent its essential characteristics, since it is essential for us to disseminate it in a careful, informed and appropriate way to our instrumentation. We hope you enjoy it and that it will arouse your curiosity to seek out and get to know our musical tradition, which is as beautiful as it is surprising. 

Programme

Cantiga da Ceifa - Machico, Madeira Island

Collected by Artur Andrade and António Aragão

Eito Fora, Eito Fora - São Pedro do Sul, Viseu

Collected by M. Giacometti

Passacalhes - Miranda do Douro

Collected by A. Mourinho

Kiss the Child - Miranda do Douro

Compiled by J. A. Sardinha in "Portugal Musical Roots"

Fandango - Caldas da Rainha

Compiled by J. A. Sardinha in "Portugal Musical Roots"

Fandango - Mafra

Collected by D. Morais

My good - Terceira Island, Azores

Compiled by J. A. Sardinha in "Portugal Musical Roots"

Chula de Gouve - Gouve, Baião

Collected by E. V. de Oliveira

Fado Corrido

Collected and transcribed by César das Neves in "Cancioneiro de Músicas Populares Vol. III".

Entrai Pastores - Ferreira do Alentejo, Beja

Collected by F. Lopes-Graça

Corridinho - Tavira

Tavira Folklore Group

Corridinho - Algarve

Alvorada - Rio d'Onor

Collected by E. V. de Oliveira

Canticle to the Child - Moura

Compiled by J. A. Sardinha in "Portugal Musical Roots"

Senhora da Póvoa - Penha Garcia

Collected by M. Giacometti

Song in Lá lá lá - Penha Garcia

Collected by M. Giacometti

Carmina Repas Gonçalves  | Soprano and Viola da Gamba

She began her musical studies as a child, having studied piano, violin, singing and viola da gamba at the Concertino music school and later at the Lisbon Conservatory of Music. She sang in several choirs and directed the choir of students of the Ana Mangericão Dance School for 2 years, having later taken an intensive course in choral direction at the Piaget Institute. Along with her interest and taste for music and its teaching, she developed other artistic skills such as dance (studying for several years at the Ana Mangericão Dance School, where she would develop in various types of dance) and theater, finishing her degree in Theater Production at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in 2009. Despite having had some interesting professional and academic experiences in theater and dance, he eventually decided that his artistic path would be dedicated mainly to music, using many of the tools acquired in this learning process. The beginning of the study of the viola da gamba (2004) coincided with the discovery of ancient music and traditional music, subjects on which she has been focusing ever since. With regard to the study of early music, he graduated in 2013 from the School of Music, Arts and Entertainment through which he had the chance to do 1 year of Erasmus at Kungliga Musikhögskola i Stockholm (Sweden). Along with her studies, she has played with some renowned musicians and groups such as Concerto Atlântico (Dir. Pedro Caldeira Cabral), Sete Lágrimas (Dir. Filipe Faria and Sérgio Peixoto) and Arte Mínima (Dir. Pedro Sousa Silva) and has regularly participated in concerts with Ensemble Marca d'Água and Ensemble l'Aspiration. As far as traditional music is concerned, he had the opportunity to study for a year at Sjövik Folkhögskolan in Sweden and has done some research work as a self-taught musician. His work in this area is mainly focused on the research and dissemination of traditional Portuguese music, which can be seen mainly through his duo Cardo-Roxo (with which he has performed concerts throughout the country and will soon release the 1st CD) and the educational project Cardo-Amarelo. Currently, along with his artistic activity, he works as an assistant of the Early Music Course of ESMAE in which he organizes concerts, courses and master classes.

Antony Fernandes | Baritone, Säckpipa, Low Whistle, Harmonic Flute

Born on March 31, 1984 in Paris, France, she moved to Felgueiras, Portugal as a child where she showed an early aptitude for music and theater. At the age of 17 he joined an amateur theater company in Felgueiras, the Teatro Oficina Fonseca Moreira. There his interest in theater truly arose and after three years he entered the Contemporary Academy of the Spectacle, in Porto. It was during these years that he had a deeper contact with traditional music and learned to play the bagpipes with Ricardo Coelho. He finished his theater training with an average of 16 points and two months later he was hired to work at the Teatro Nacional São João, in Porto, in a show called "O Café" by Carlo Goldoni staged by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti and later became part of the cast of the television series "Morangos com Açúcar" as a special extra. She has also performed several shows in the field of street theater with major companies in this area such as "Les Plasticiens Volants", France, and with "Titanic Theatre", Germany. In 2009 he was part of the cast of the Creativity Center of Povoa de Lanhoso where he performed several shows. In September 2009, wanting to carry out his own projects, he decided to accept the invitation of Lérias, a Cultural Association based in Miranda do Douro, to direct an amateur theater company and to teach bagpipe lessons. It was there that, due to the geographical isolation, he developed skills in writing, staging, scenography and costumes. In 2011/2012 he studied traditional music at Sjöviks Folkhögskola school in Sweden. In November 2011 he was part of a staged reading, as a musician, which took place at the São Bento da Vitória Monastery in collaboration with TeatroEnsaio and Teatro Nacional São João. In 2012 he created with Carmina Repas Gonçalves the duo Cardo-Roxo, a group dedicated to the preservation, development and dissemination of traditional music. He is part of the Identidades team, an informal group of people linked to traditional music responsible for the edition of a quarterly magazine, a website and an annual congress.