Just released “In Search of a New Hope” in most streaming platforms. Thisithe first song from EP “Far Out”, the music from “Uma Coisa Longínqua” a play-movie by Teatro de Ferro. Stay tuned for more releases soon. In the mean time, enjoy my first installment of an incurring into retro-futuristic music.
Category Archives: performances
Premiere of “Lições de voo”
Tomorrow! Opening night for “Lições de voo” (“Flight Lessons”) at Teatro Constantino Nery in Matosinhos with Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, directed by Isabel Barros with fabulous actors Vitor Gomes and Micaela Soares. Costume design by Cláudia Ribeiro and lighting design and operation by the unstoppable Filipe Azevedo. Music soon to be available on your favorite streaming platforms.
Posted in new music, performances, premieres
Residency with Igor Gandra at NYUAD
Currently doing a residency with Igor Gandra at NYUAD’s Innovation Studio to develop a new piece. Stay tuned for the developments!!
Posted in new music, performances, premieres
Music for Visuals, Visuals for Music
On April 1 I will open the Manifold festival with a concert featuring Laetitia Morais (live video), Cristina Ioan (flute), Emil Sein (saxophones), and Mahsin Basalama (qanun). The concert will feature the world premiere of “Three insomnias — Music for a dark room.”
The electronic part of “Three Insomnias” was composed in 2001 by Carlos Guedes for ballet “Quarto Escuro,” a choreography by Isabel Barros for the Balleteatro, and a commission from Porto 2001 European Capital of Culture. The traumatic event of 9/11 happened during the rehearsals for this show, and this was a major shifting point for the music. The stark reality reminding us all of our impotence in avoiding this type of violence, brought all of a sudden a new meaning, and almost new function to the music being composed — it should be able to transport people to dreamy states and beautiful spaces in order to liberate them from the horrible reality being lived at the time. The audiovisual reincarnation of this music in Three Insomnias with the videos by Laetitia Morais and the live music counterpart intends to make the audience embark on a collective dream that transports them audiovisually and emotionally to new and beautiful places.
Posted in new music, performances, premieres
Korean premiere of “1985.2”
Later today “1985.2” for soprano saxophone and fixed media electronics will be performed by mighty Gilberto Bernardes at the Seoul International Computer Music Festival 2017 in Gwangju, South Korea.
Posted in performances, premieres
Phobia Robotica
Phobia Robotica is a piece I composed for Phobos-Orquestra Robótica Disfuncional (Phobos – Dysfunctional Robotic Orchestra) that premieres June 3 and 4 at the Serralves em Festa Festival in Porto. This is collaboration with Sonoscopia. Check it out if you happen to be around. Bzzzt!
Posted in new music, performances, premieres
Spotlight of work at Labocine
My recent work with dance and video featuring some of my favorite collaborators (Nella Turkki, Kirk Woolford, Saguenail, João Menezes, Cristina Ioan, and Laetitia Morais) is presented at Labocine, an online publication from Imagine Science Films. Check it out!
Photo credit: Kirk Woolford
Posted in performances, Publications, Video
Video from Jinn on Vimeo
Video from Jinn, premiered last March 14, published on Vimeo.
Choreography & Dance: Nella Turkki
Flute & Voice: Cristina Ioan
Video: Saguenail
Motion Capture & Video Compositing: Kirk Woolford
Sound Recording: João Menezes
Music: Carlos Guedes
Posted in new music, performances, Video
Chinese premiere of “La brume, et la plume du poète qui inquiète”
“La brume, et la plume du poète qui inquiète” for string orchestra will have its China premiere on Saturday, May 28, at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, conducted by Michaël Cousteau. I will give a masterclass at the Beijing Central Conservatory on Friday, May 27.
Posted in lectures, performances
Jinn
A choreomusical work conceived and performed by Carlos Guedes, Kirk Woolford, Nella Turkki and Cristina Ioan.
- Choreography & Dance: Nella Turkki
- Flute: Cristina Ioan
- Music: Carlos Guedes
- Video: Saguenail
- Motion Capture, video compositing & Animation: Kirk Woolford
- Lighting Design: Simon Fraulo (3/14 and 3/15, 2016) & Elinor Mhairi Burton (4/2 and 4/3, 2016)
- Sound recording & technical assistance: João Menezes
Premiere: March 14, 2016 at NYUAD Innovation Studio
About Jinn:
The Arabic term jinn means “invisible beings.” The jinn are sentient beings who are composed from subtle matter. Before Islam, they were worshiped as gods, as tutelary deities, or as spiritual protectors not only in the Arabian Peninsula but also in neighboring areas…. In Qu’ran… there is mention that [the jinn] are created from ‘scorching winds’ and ‘a smokeless fire,’ and it is also said that they are like humans in that they are rational beings formed of nations
Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia (Ed. Josef Meri, 2006, p.420)
The concept of Jinn in Arab culture is used as a metaphor for addressing the question of the musicality inherent in human bodily movement. Movement sonification in musical ways has been one of my main interests when working with dance. Back in 2003, I developed software that could extract musical rhythms from dance movement in real time and use them has a means to articulate the music during performance. Since then I explored different ways of presenting the relationship between bodily movement in dance and its inherent musicality though the use of software that could help bring that relationship to the fore. 2003 was also the year I started collaborating with Kirk Woolford on developing artistic work that relates to the perception of human bodily motion, in pieces such as Côr ( Guedes, Ula li & Wollford, 2003), Will.0.w1sp (Wollford & Guedes, 2005) or Echo Locations (Wollford & Guedes) 2008).
In this piece, no software is used to establish this relationship. Instead, different perspectives for perceiving the relationship between bodily movement and its inherent musicality are presented in three distinct ways: (1) by performing the sonification of movement in real time with a musical instrument that was created for that purpose; (2) by removing the body from a video in which the sound and the trace left by the movement remain as the witnesses of this relationship; and (3) by presenting a synthetic rendering of the movement performed by the dancer in the form of a graphical particle system that gets synthetically sonified. As the body gets progressively dematerialized, the relationship between movement and its musicality becomes increasingly more apparent and clear.
Posted in new music, performances, premieres, Uncategorized
Carlos Guedes 