19 July: Mon(o)rchestra live @ vilatone festival

Programmed by variz.org this was an improvisation performance featuring António Chaparreiro (guitar), Fala Mariam (trombone), João Castro Pinto (laptop), Nuno Rebelo (guitar), Peter Bastien (sax), Pedro Gonçalves (doublebass), Rui Alves (drums), Rui Viana (laptop) e Sei Miguel (pocket trumpet). It happened at the roman ruins of Vilamoura (Algarve / Portugal) with the musicians scattered around the ruins.

Pocketbook of Lightning in residency at Centa + 2 concerts in Lisbon

From 7 to 11 July we were in residency in CENTA (http://centa-tojeira.blogspot.com). Surrounded by nature, me and Marco spent some great days practicing, recording and videotaping our music. On the 12 we came back to Lisbon for a concert at CCB (Belém Cultural Center - Lisbon). A few days later, on the 18th, we did another gig, this time at a big old flat in Lisbon, where each room was a venue, kind of an independent party that lasted through out the night.

related posts:
3 improvisation gigs
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Oficinas do Convento, 29-03-2008
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Musicbox (Lisbon)16 of May
my 2006

Feminine

I've been working on the music for "Feminine", a choreography by Paulo Ribeiro, since the beggining of May, but the most intense period was the second half of June. By the 6th of July the music was ready, featuring my wife Cathrin Loerke singing and the voice of Richard Zenith reading some texts that the portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa originnaly wrote in english. Richard is one of the great specialists on Pessoa's work and the texts i used were selected by him. Cathrin, apart from the singing, did all the graphic design work for "Feminine". The music has a flavour of the 70's rock, as requested by Paulo Ribeiro, and all instruments are played by myself. There is a very nice guitar solo "Santana style" that i realy enjoy! The cherry on the icecream is the song "Oh long before" (Cathrin singing) - couldn't it be a hit?

click here to listen to it: oh long before

I met Lulu!

From 8 to 15 of June, one more period working on songs for Lulu. This time Mark came with Alexandra Sarramona, who will perform the role of Lulu. During this short period we focused on recording the voice of Alexandra in the existing songs and do the necessary pitch changes to adapt the songs to her voice. She revealed herself as a very nice and charming woman, with a beautiful and transparent voice.

related posts:
Mark Tompkins in Lisbon
lulu: some more songs
3 more songs for Lulu

Dalton Brothers @ OdaGuarda festival, 7 June 2008

Granular association was invited to propose a formation to perform at OdaGuarda Festival, so they suggested this sextet which performed in Brussels in November 2007
(see related post Granular : : P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels, 3 and 4/11/2007)). If in Brussels we performed with a large group of dancers, at OdaGuarda it was just a concert, though we kept more or less the same frame for improvisation, directed by myself on the spot with gestures. Unfortunatelly there wasn't much audience since the gig was the same night Portugal football team played against Turkey for the European Cup. Anyway, we decided to call this sextet "The Dalton Brothers" because of the height of the musicians: João Martins is Joe Dalton, Ricardo Freitas is Jack Dalton, Emido Buchinho is William Dalton, Miguel Cabral is Averell; i'm still fighting with Ulrich Mitzlaff to decide which of us is Lucky Luke and Rantanplan.

Performing the space @ Alkantara festival

remake of my performance in December 2007 (see related post it will be what we make it, this time within the frame of Alkantara festival, Lisbon, May 27. Here is the video of the first performance in December 2007:

3 improvisation gigs

2 gigs of my duo "Pocketbook of Lightning" (Marco Franco on drums and myself on electric guitar), first one at ZDB gallery in Lisbon (May 9) and second one at Outfest in Barreiro (May 24). Here is an old video of Pocketbook of Lighning playing, back in 2003:

pocket book of lightning


In this festival i played also with "A Parte Maldita", an improvisation septet lead by guitar player Antonio Chaparreiro.

A PArte Maldita live @ Outfest

related posts (Pocketbook of Lightning):
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Oficinas do Convento, 29-03-2008
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Musicbox (Lisbon)16 of May
my 2006

related posts (A Parte Maldita):
10 January: A parte maldita - impro at Fábrica do Braço de Prata
podcasts of A Parte Maldita: http://lumpenmusic.podomatic.com/

3 more songs for lulu

Next day, on April 27, Mark Tompkins arrives for another week working with me on new songs for his next piece "Lulu, une opérette de circonstance". During this intense working period at my studio we came up with 3 new songs: "it's time", "where is your force" and "too young to die". The piece will premiere in November at theatre Pole Sud in Strasbourg.

related posts:
Mark Tompkins in Lisbon
lulu: some more songs

3 concerts of "Nazaré, not the town but the woman"

Arriving from Toulouse on April 23, i had a rehearsal that same night with the german singer Katharina Franck to prepare our concerts for the next 3 days in Portugal. So, on the 24th we performed "Nazaré, not the town but the woman" at Culturgest (a big concert hall in Lisbon), on the 25th we performed it at Teatro Viriato (Viseu) and on the 26th we played it at Moagem, in Fundão. This spokenword concert tells the story of a woman during the period of the revolution in Portugal which happened on the 25th of April 1974. This piece was originnaly a comission from Deutsche Bayern 3 Radio and premiered live in Berlin one year ago. Since Katharina lived in Portugal for 9 years, she's able to speak perfect portuguese and so, fot these concerts, the story was translated from its original german version to portuguese. The concert at Culturgest was broadcasted live on national radio Antena 2.

related posts:
Nuno Rebelo + Katharina Franck, live at Akademie der Kunste, Berlin
Nazaré - nicht die Stadt, die Frau

From 14 to 23 April 2008:“Audible movement, visible sound” in Toulouse, France

Mark Tompkins and I have been teaching together this workshop which focuses the grey zones of cross-path and contamination of the performing body regarding movement and sound making, in a context of improvisation – or real time composition. We started in 2000 and have done it three times in Vienna, Strasbourg, Lisbon and Bucarest,and Lubljana. Now we did it in Toulouse. It’s always a great adventure for me to be involved in this workshop, since I get in touch with myself in terms of body performance. This is an area that for years was unknown to me and that I could never imagine that I had any talent at all to do it… But doing this teaching with Mark since 2000 (or should I say training?), I’m getting more and more confortable in doing it; plus, Mark and the dancers who participate give me very encouraging feedback on this matter. Last year in Ljubljana I felt for the first time very comfortable to improvise as a “mover”, now I want more, more, more of this!

related posts: my 2006

Lost & Foundlive at Bijou, Toulouse, 17 & 18 April

While in Toulouse for the workshop, we did two gigs with our duo Lost & Found.
This duo started in 2006. It’s a kind of a pocket version of our band “Mark Lewis & the Standards”. We play some of the songs of the Standards with different arrangements and we use videos that I did both as visual background and soundtrack. But we also did some original songs and later the Standards started to play these too. So it works both ways. So far, this duo played in Vienna, Ljubljana, Berlin, Girona, Paris, Terrassa (Spain) and now in Toulouse. We never played in Portugal…

a noite árabefrom 12 march to 27 april

"A Noite Árabe",
a theater piece with my music,
performed at Teatro da Politécnica, Lisbon.
From wednsday to saturday: 21h00
sunday: 16h00

written by ROLAND SCHIMMELPFENNIG,
staged by PAULO FILIPE,
music and soundscapes by NUNO REBELO,
set and costumes by VERA CASTRO,
lights by JOSÉ CARLOS NASCIMENTO.
movement assistant: AMÉLIA BENTES

Actors:
DINARTE BRANCO, JOÃO GROSSO, SARA CARINHAS, TERESA SOBRAL and VICTOR GONÇALVES

co-production TNDMII / Paulo Filipe

Pocketbook of Lightninglive at Oficinas do Convento, 29-03-08

The purpose of a glove is to have a hand inside, but it can also be used to hold peanuts. Peanuts need to be held in something. A glove can hold peanuts. But a glove and peanuts were not made for each other.
This is, more or less, how Jonathan Safran Foer explains the title of his book "The Unabridged Pocketbook of Lightning", then saying that the content of the book has nothing to do with its title. More, he says, even before his book, this was the title of a poem of one of his friends.
"Pocketbook of Lightning", the duo of Nuno Rebelo + Marco franco, has nothing to do with this, except for the fact that's where they picked the name for their duo. Nevertheless, in this case, there's something about this name that reflects somehow the music of the duo. It fits them like a glove.

Nuno Rebelo - electric guitar + amplified objects
Marco Franco - drums + analog electronics

Live at Oficinas do Convento,
Montemor-o-novo, Portugal, 29 March 2008

variable geometry orchestralive at ZDB, Lisbon, 22 March 08

Ernesto Rodrigues invited 9 members of the orchestra, plus Brazilian violinist Luis Loreto, to interpret a piece structured in 8 different sections.

Ernesto Rodrigues – composition, conduction, electric violin
Luis Loreto - violin
Jean-Marc Charmier – trumpet, flugelhorn
Eduardo Chagas - trombone
Bruno Parrinha - alto clarinet
João Pedro Viegas – bass clarinet
Alípio Carvalho Neto – soprano & tenor saxophone
Lizuarte Borges - alto saxophone
Peter Baastian - melodica
Armando Gonçalves Pereira – accordion, piano
Nuno Rebelo – electric guitar
Abdul Moimême – electric guitar

to hear the live recording of the concert, click here

Nuno Rebelo + Peter Baastianimpro at Cantaloupe Bar, 14 & 15 March 08

Nuno Rebelo - guitar + amplified objects
Peter Baastian - percussions, sax, melodica & gadgets

Nice to go south and enjoy the warmer weather, the beautiful coast line and the food of this part of Portugal - where i allways spend my summer hollidays.

Peter is a dutch musician living in Portugal since many years. Although we had played together before, mostly in VGO concerts, this was the first time in duo.

The gigs where very pleasant, for a nice and warm audience.

Before coming back to Lisbon i spend the afternoon driving along the Spanish coast. Did you know that gas is 35 cents / liter cheaper there?...

premiere of Lobos

"Lobos" is a movie directed by José Nascimento. Although i composed the music for it already one year ago, the première was yesterday at Monumental cinema in Lisbon. There was a good audience that seemed to enjoy the film; personally i got excelent comments about my music - of course most of them were from close friends, nevertheless it made me feel quite well :) The music features Miguel Leiria Pereira on doublebass and Paulo Galão on clarinet and myself on guitars and adicional instruments. Since i recorded them improvising solo and not listening to one another, they were quite surprised with the musical result when it all comes together: their melodies plus my instruments.
Actors: Nuno Melo, Catarina Wallenstein, Francisco Nascimento, Maria João Luís, Vítor Norte.

16 February: Variable Geometry Orchestralive at Fábrica do Braço de Prata

VGO (variable Geometry Orchestra) is the largest improvisation ensemble in Portugal. Directed by Ernesto Rodrigues, it has been performing concerts with a line-up reaching sometimes 40 musicians! I've been playing several times in this project. It's allways very relaxed yet focused on the music making. This gig was, as allways, a great pleasure to participate in. A triple-CD of VGO ("Stills") has been recently released by Creative Sources label.

10 January: A parte malditaimpro at Fábrica do Braço de Prata

"A parte maldita" (Abdul Moimême: tenor sax; António Chaparreiro, Nuno Rebelo: guitars; Hernâni Faustino: doublebass: Jorge Serigado: bass; Rui Alves: drums; Miguel Sá, Fernando Fadigas: electrónics). A wild psychadelic impro with free jazz flavours and rock bursts at Fábrica do Braço de Prata, Lisbon. Click here to listen to a podcast of the gig.

Lulu: some more songs

From 1 to 13 of January Mark Tompkins was here in Lisbon again, to work with me for Lulu. This will be a musical choreographed by him and we're working together on the songs. Orchestral arrangements, beautiful songs. During this period we came up with 4 more songs ("you will dance", "circus of passions", what shall i do now" and "half a million". For the moment all arrangements are done with midi instruments but the final version will be with real acoustic instruments.