Friday 1st December
Viola and Piano music by Erik Satie, Arvo Pärt, etc.
Elisa Clegg | viola
Joana Gama | piano
Gamal Khamis | piano.
Additional support: Alice Maxwell, violin and David Simpkin, guitar.
Songs with audience participation!
Music for a Winter’s Evening Poster (pdf)
Joana Gama
(Braga, 1983) is a pianist and a researcher. She studied at the Calouste
Gulbenkian Conservatory of Music (Braga), the Royal Academy of Music (London) and
Lisbon College of Music. In António Rosado’s class, she completed a Master’s in Performance
at the University of Évora in 2010, where, in 2017, she defended her PHD thesis “Performance
studies on Portuguese contemporary music for piano: the particular case of evocative music of
elements of the Portuguese culture” with a scholarship by the Portuguese Government. She is
currently part of the Music Department staff of University of Minho (Braga – Portugal).
In 2016, with the support by Antena 2, Joana Gama dedicated herself to SATIE.150 –
A celebration in the shape of an umbrella, which marked, in Portugal, the 150th anniversary
of the birth of the French composer Erik Satie. In this context, in addition to the piano
recitals, she gave lectures in schools and coordinated the edition of “Embryons dessechés |
Embriões ressequidos”, a special edition of Satie’s homonymous score published by Pianola
Editores and released on the day of the composer’s birthday – May 17th. On July 8th, 2016,
she gave an uninterrupted 15-hour performance of Erik Satie’s “Vexations” at the Jardins
Efémeros Festival in Viseu. In December, she released the album HARMONIES (Shhpuma),
a project shared with Luis Fernandes (electronics) and Ricardo Jacinto (cello and electronics),
inspired by Erik Satie’s music and peculiar universe. The work was presented in the most
important Portuguese venues, and more recently, in Berlin, Valência and Dumfries, with the
support of the Portuguese Government.
As a pianist and performer, in recent years, Joana has been involved in projects that
associate music to dance – “Danza Ricercata” and “27 Bones” by Tânia Carvalho,
“Thunderstorm” by Luís Guerra, “Skin” by ùtero, ”Nocturne” in co-creation with Victor Hugo
Pontes -, theater – “Benny Hall” by Esticalimógama and “Beaumarchais” by mala voadora -,
photography and video – “Antropia”, “Linha” and “iOver the hills” by Eduardo Brito – and
cinema – “La Valse” by João Botelho, “Fire” by Miguel Seabra Lopes and Karen Akerman, “The
Glory of making Cinema in Portugal” by Manuel Mozos and “Penúmbria” by Eduardo Brito.
QUEST, piano and electronics duo with Luís Fernandes, went to festivals like Novas
Frequências (Rio de Janeiro) and MADEIRADIG. The first album, edited by Shhpuma, was
considered one of the best albums of 2014 by several Portuguese critics. In 2017, in response
to a challenge by the Westway LAB Festival (Guimarães), they premièred “at the still point of
the turning world”, a collaboration with the Orquestra de Guimarães that will also be released
as an album in 2018.
Maybe it is because she started music and ballet lessons at the same time, Joana brings
to the act of playing the piano a particular expressiveness, as if the posture and the graceful
movements that she learned in the dance had been marked in her body.
More info about Joana on her website and on YouTube.