Afonso Pais - O Que Já Importa
Change of venue (updated on 13/09/2022 at 14:00)
To ensure a better experience for the public in view of the rain forecast for this day, this concert will take place at the Olga Cadaval Cultural Center (Acácio Barreiros Auditorium ), in Sintra. It will no longer be held outdoors, at the Park of Monserrate.
‘O Que Já Importa’ is a compilation of seven songs whose messages reveal themselves in the form of a mantra, like a landscape or a portrait, which is constructed under a set of light beams to create an unrepeatable whole. Two trios perform: three voices (João Neves, Nazaré da Silva and Maria Luísa) and three instruments – Afonso Pais’ guitar, together with the rhythm section of João Hasselberg on bass and João Pereira on drums. All the songs emanate from an imagery that centres around the guitar as a creative 'voice' and it is from this focal point that the nostalgic journey begins.
PEDRO MOREIRA | CLAVE NA MÃO
Program
- Sweet dreams (American traditional)
- Última Estação (Afonso Pais)
- Carolina (Afonso Pais)
- Escondido (Afonso Pais)
- Sombras de Alvalade (Afonso Pais)
- Terra Transitória (Afonso Pais)
- Tépido (Afonso Pais)
- Montanhas (Scottish traditional)
- Ermo (Afonso Pais)
- Ermo (V2) (Afonso Pais)
- Conforto (Afonso Pais)
About the program
“My earliest and most vivid memory is of the blues. It brought music to me, then the guitar. It predates any choice of a musical life. ‘O Que Já Importa’ [What Matters Now] is not a recap. It precedes." (AFONSO PAIS)
With this collection of songs, Afonso Pais, composer and guitarist, begins a new chapter of artistic accomplishment, four years after his previous record.
Two trios will be performing: three voices – João Neves, Luísa Caseiro and Nazaré da Silva – accompanied by the three rhythm section instruments – João Hasselberg on electric bass and João Lopes Pereira on drums, as well as Afonso Pais –, at times in harmony, at others in counterpoint, creating a timbric and spatial voyage that is essential to the intended simplicity with which the musical message is transmitted to the listener.
‘O Que Já Importa’ is a celebration of what music can be at its most concise. The rhythmic refinement of the songs is what makes them unique: each song reveals the message little by little, like in a mantra, in repetitions that make the musical portrait recognisable as a whole, as a single portrait, unique and unrepeatable.
All the songs emanate from an imagery that centres around the guitar as a creative ‘voice’. From it emerge the places and episodes, the moments and the journeys that connect them. They are songs in a broad and diverse sense, which embrace the idiosyncrasies of the guitar, an instrument so popular and culturally rich. Also represented is Portuguese song, the melody in Portuguese, which radiates from the lyrics and the sense of nostalgia.
“Each song reconstructs an experience and re-establishes its mark on the emotional memory that accompanies it: an autobiography in sounds. This work embodies the meaning of the blues in its various manifestations within me. I know neither the beginning nor the destination. But I know all about the journey, and I tell that story here, with all the reference points that matter.” (AFONSO PAIS)
