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