Questionnaire / Interview
PART 1 – Roots and Education
How did music begin for you? Where do you identify your music roots? Which paths led you to composition?
Sara Carvalho: There was little music tradition in my family, and I started learning music by chance. However it does not mean that we did not listen to music at home. We used to listen regularly to Brazilian music (Elis Regina, Caetano, Chico Veloso…), Portuguese music (Zeca Afonso, Sérgio Godinho, José Mário Branco, Fausto…), the Beatles, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, among others. I do not recall listening much to classical music, and much less contemporary. Nevertheless my mother always says, almost as a joke, that one day (when I was little) somebody asked me who I would be when I grew up, and my reply was Beethoven, shaking my arms as if conducting an orchestra… The idea must have emerged from somewhere, but I do not have any memory of its origin.
At the end of the 4th grade, the music teacher at the school where I used to go decided to talk to my mother that it would have been a shame if I hadn’t learnt music “more seriously”. At that time my mother singed me up for the Cultural Association Bando dos Gambozinos, dedicated to the concept of “Education through Art”, and it was in that school where the adventure began, where I learnt music and where I began to enter into the world of composition, at the age of 15, tutored by Fernando C. Lapa.
Which moments from your music education do you find the most important?
SC: When it comes to education, I think that the time spent at the Cultural Association Bando dos Gambozinos was decisive to my learning and way of thinking. Here I had the opportunity to learn and experience music in a less traditional and very creative way. I was also fortunate enough to be able to study with Fernando C. Lapa who, besides teaching me Analysis and Composition Techniques, worked with me on free Composition. Later on, what I find important is my entrance to the University of Aveiro, where I worked with João Pedro Oliveira, and to the University of York, where I worked with Nicola LeFanu and Roger Marsh. But I also cannot fail to mention the master classes and courses, which I attended for example with Emmanuel Nunes, Jorge Peixinho, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Bernard Rands, Kurt Schwertsik, Betsy Jolas, etc.; where each one of them, in his / her own way, moulded my way of thinking…
Nevertheless there were other, and various significant moments. For example, the emotional surprise of listening for the first time to an orchestra performance… at the time I should have been more or less 12! Or when for the first time in 1991, I went to the Gulbenkian Encounters of Contemporary Music. And finally, probably one of the most remarkable moments, when I heard my work performed for the first time at the University of York in 1995; the work was entitled Máscara, for flute, guitar and piano. It was composed during my first year at the faculty, in 1991, and it had been waiting in a drawer.
PART 2 – Influences and Aesthetics
What kind of references do you assume in your compositional practice? Which works from the history of music and the present do you find the most influential?
SC: There is no reference, which I could consider unique. There are lots of works and composers, who have come to influence me, and who have left references in my practice of composition; however, I think that these references mingle immensely, and it would be very complicated to point them out individually. Obviously, there are composers and works, which were and are essential in my way of conceiving music today. As an example, and without wanting to be very exhaustive as I could refer many others, I can mention Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Alban Berg, Varèse, Berio, Ligeti, Cage, Boulez, Nono… there are so many that it is very difficult to choose. All of them are important references, but I think that I would never write music as theirs. Anyway, I don’t feel the need to be integrated in any specific current…
The dichotomy “occupation – vocation” can define the artistic / professional approach of a composer. Where on the scale between the emotional (inspiration and vocation) and the pragmatic / rational (calculation and occupation), can you identify your manner of working and your stance as composer?
SC: Apart from writing music I am also a teacher; obviously this confines the time, which I dedicate to composition, but at the same time it gives me another kind of freedom of writing, as stylistically I always write what I feel like composing.
Presently my approach to composition and the creative act is quite intuitive and emotional. But it has not always been like this; my approach was previously very structured and systematic. The formal organization of ideas always emerged in the first place, almost as a “rule”. Today it’s different. The manner of approaching an idea always involves a vast sensory process. Within this process I define and structure my material, where I choose the techniques capable of communicating my ideas in the best way. And it is in this manipulation of material that I come to understand its potential. Obviously what arises here is my whole education, which I had and certainly will continue to have during the course of my life.
Music, due to its nature, is essentially incapable of expressing anything – emotion, mental attitude, psychological disposition or any natural phenomenon. What music expresses is only an illusion or metaphor, and not reality. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? In this context how could you define your aesthetic stance?
SC: In his autobiography Stravinsky presents the same idea, declaring further that “expression has never been an inherent property of music” and that is why “it is not the purpose of its existence”. This is an old subject, which has been discussed by countless authors and philosophers. I accept that for some music would be incapable of expressing anything. To my mind, for each one separately music means what one wants to take from it. Personally, I consider that the phenomenon of sound gives us in fact a lot of information, and it will never communicate in the same form as, for example, spoken language. Music doesn’t have the same semantics that words have, but I also don’t think that this should be intended. For me music is incapable of not expressing anything. If what it expresses to each one of us is what the composer idealized, does not seem relevant to me. Music has the power to induce what Walton used to call as imagenings, that is, music provokes imaginative representations. And I think that this is the way in which we understand it, when we try to make sense of what we hear. This makes us construct relations between what we experienced in the past, for example our memories, and what we are listening to.
Are there any extramusical sources, which influence your work significantly?
SC: Since always my writing has had as a starting point an extramusical source, although at the beginning it used to occur in an unconscious and loosely structured manner. And there are a lot of extramusical sources that I use as a compositional support, for example, literature. I like reading, especially discovering the way, in which every author joins (his / her) words together, and achieves in developing different meanings, depending on the context. And this is in a certain way what I try to do with my music – elaborating timbres and sonorities in different contexts, within a personal search of my own interior sound world. I don’t intend it to be a programmatic process, where the listener listens to my narrative, but rather a process where the music makes the listener construct his / her own narratives, which are certainly infinite. Yet, I could also refer other examples of other extramusical sources, which I have already explored, such as painting, photography, cinema, or even my own experiences.
Are there any non-western culture influences in your music?
SC: I think that yes. There are certain moments, more or less conscious in my work, where I can feel some influence of Arabic ornamentation; or sometimes the material that I am working with, generates melodies, which are somewhat similar to Indian music, perhaps because I am a yoga practitioner, who knows. It is, for example, the case of the work Surya Namaskara, for soprano and ensemble, which uses the mantra Gaayatri (in Sanskrit) as the element integrating and generating the musical discourse. Another example is the work, My Shadow walks home with me, for flute and piano, which was inspired in three haikus about the Moon, and uses melodies suggesting an ornamentation of Arabic influence. But I think that these non-western influences are incorporated from a very personal perspective. Any influence, which can emerge in musical gestures, is totally decontextualized, for example from a non-western culture point of view.
PART 3 - Language and Compositional Practice
How do you characterize your music language when taking into account the techniques developed in Composition in the 20th and 21st Centuries? Do you have any musical genre / style of preference?
SC: To be honest I am not sure if it is up to me to say that I already have my own musical language. I prefer to let others define it, if one day they wish to do so. There is also no musical genre or style, which I would prefer. I am fond of many genres and styles, but there are also many that I dislike.
I think that the techniques I use change according to what I intend, whereas the timbre and the intervallic structure are fundamental in my way of thinking. And it is when I am working and organizing my material that I search for the technique(s) that can facilitate the composition of the work. For me the technique should be circumscribed in the musical intention, and not the opposite, that is, technique is a tool that should not be elevated to its highest expression.
Could you describe the process behind your compositional practice? Do you compose from an embryo-idea or after having elaborated a global form of music?
SC: The idea and the concept of my works always have a very concrete starting point. This initial stimulus can emerge from many sources: literature, cinema, visual arts, a landscape, a detail or any kind of experience. This embodies the search for a narrative, what in a certain way means that for me writing is a process similar to writing a book. It is in this working process that I determine and structure my material, and slowly this narrative becomes a submerged line leading the creative development. And that is way since always the titles arise before composing the piece. When I find my title it is because the work has been already conceived, and afterwards I only need to write it. The process of conception normally takes more time. After that the writing, putting everything on paper, is a relatively rapid procedure.
This way of working is embedded in my process of creation, and for me it is not relevant at all whether it is apparent or not while listening to the music. I don’t intend to make the audience listen programmatically; my objective is not to acknowledge the working / compositional process in the music. Within the perception of the work every listener will find what it will need to communicate to him / her. The important thing is to create these spaces, enabling the communication with the listener.
What is your relation with new technologies (for example with computer means), and how do they influence your way of composing and your music language?
SC: For the time being my music does not employ new technologies. Not because I think that they cannot have an enormous potential, for example as extensions of instruments (and this is a subject that interests me), but rather that I haven’t felt yet the true need or determination to integrate them in my work. However, in my works I like exploring and creating instrumental textures that sometimes resemble the sonorities of electroacoustic music achieved within the use of new technologies. Therefore, I say that there is some influence of the new technologies in my way of composing, although it is rather indirect.
What is the importance of timbre and space in your music?
SC: In the music I write I use the space as another element at my disposal. Its use depends on my expressive needs, and how this element can be adapted in the work, in order to facilitate the audition and comprehension of the work. An approach towards spatiality has been developed in practically all of my works, which, for example, use theatrical features, as in the case of Solos III (for solo flute), Solos IV (solo soprano) or Natércia (short opera), among others.
When it comes to timbre I use it in all its aspects and idiosyncrasies, both when I write for solo instruments, as well as within different instrumental sets. The exploration of timbre is fundamental in my music and in the development of my musical discourse.
Which works from your catalogue do you consider turning points in your career as composer?
SC: The form, in which I conceive my music has been transforming slowly and gradually during the years, so I have some difficulty in referring one or another work, which could be considered as turning point in my career. On the one hand I think that until this moment there has not been any sudden change, but on the other perhaps my career has still not been sufficiently long. In each work I reflect on different processes, and I come across my own solutions in order to solve certain problems that appear throughout. Looking backwards, I think that there are some works where one can feel more objectively these small “turnarounds”, in other words, where the transformation of some ideas is materialized more objectively, for example as in the string quartet Blows Hot and Cold where I use a rigorous intervallic structure, or in the work Solos III for flute(s) solo within its theatrical dimension, or in the instrumental quintet Cleave (II) with its emotional freedom, or likewise in Pedaços de Lua for orchestra, projection, image and narrator – a stimulating challenge, which taught me a lot.
Definitively one of the most important turning points for me was the establishment of collaborations with different performers. It is a process where the performer is not only the final beneficiary of the work, but also where he or she makes part of the process of its construction. This practice also makes me reflect on various fascinating questions, such as the problem of authorship, communication, or performance, etc.
PART 4 - Portuguese Music
What do you think of the present situation in Portuguese music? What distinguishes Portuguese music on the international panorama?
SC: First we would need to define what kind of Portuguese music one has in mind. In my response I will assume that one takes into account the present situation of the so-called contemporary “classical” music, as in fact there are many types of music and many kinds of composers.
In my opinion Portugal has talented composers and with lots of capacities, and one has here an enormous freedom when it comes to adopted aesthetic tendencies. This reality gives Portuguese contemporary music an enormous richness. The problem is that many composers continue not having sufficient opportunities in order to have their work presented. And this happens in spite of some institutional efforts. The truth is that the majority of opportunities which one achieves emerge from efforts and actions, almost always individual. Yet luckily there is this individual dynamics of some people, since the Portuguese government continues not giving the necessary support to driving force structures, in order to maintain Portuguese contemporary music alive.
With regard to the 2nd part of the question, I could answer with another one: is it fair to speak of international projection without having in Portugal the concern of a national projection?
I think that certain composers are able to meet some of this projection within the panorama of international music. Nevertheless this is normally achieved on their own credit, and not because there is an institution supporting them. Either way, I think that it is not only the responsibility of the non-existent supports. There has always been a lack of dialogue and exchange between composers, and this results in a lack of exchange of ideas or experience, pillars that are fundamental for a climate of mutual support. Then, this is also reflected in the production of the Portuguese artistic activity.
How could you define the paper of composers nowadays?
SC: The word composer has for me a broad definition, which can encompass various types of function, depending on the kind of music we are talking about. According to the reasoning of my previous answer, and since we remain within contemporary “classical” music, in a very generic way, I think that the way in which the composer nowadays is integrated in the society is much more individualized than in the past. I think that a composer is a mirror of his / her own environment. Therefore, his / her form of acting will be also sculpted by the environment, within an attempt to adapt the expectation and to make them “survive” inside this society where he or she is (dis)integrated. Compositionally speaking, this means that the composer will make decisions that are completely different from what he had predicted beforehand. And this can be something either quite positive, or negative. It seems to me that nowadays, as in any other profession, composers need to be flexible if they want to survive… or else, they need to have luck!
How would you describe the situation of women-composers today in Portugal and around the world?
SC: This is one of the questions that has countless perspectives. To be a composer is one of those careers that attracts a lot more men than women, and I think that it is the same, either in Portugal or in other parts of the world. However, I need to admit that in the last decade one started to hear much more of women composers, perhaps due to the efforts of some entities, as in the case of the Adkins Chiti Foundation Women in Music. But some would say that initiatives of this kind are sexist… Personally I prefer not to think in the question of genre, composer / woman-composer. I think that I would prefer to talk about opportunities and in the way that these opportunities are being distributed. And in fact they are not distributed as objectively or impartially as I think they should be, but I hope that this does not have to do with the matters of sex. All around, the great occasions have always depended a lot on the acquaintances one has, and which are being created. Many times it is a question of luck, in other words, of knowing “to be in the right place at the right time”.
PART 5 – Present and Future
What are your current and future projects? Could you highlight one of your more recent works, presenting the context of its creation and also the particularities of the language and employed techniques?
SC: Presently I am working on three different commissions: 7 songs (cantigas) with instrumental accompaniment to be performed by children; a work for solo voice, which should be integrated in a collective project, and which will be performed by an actress; as well as a work for solo cello. I have also been thinking of writing a new string quartet; my last one was composed in 1996 and I feel that the time has come to compose a new one. As soon as it is possible, I would also like to respond to an invitation to compose a piece for a concert band.
I have had various commissions for solo instruments, or small and medium groups, but there are not many opportunities to write for larger ensembles, such as orchestra. Personally I think that the great part of composers only writes for larger ensembles or for orchestra if there is a specific request. It doesn’t mean that I don’t feel fulfilled when composing for the musicians that I write for, on the contrary. I only feel it’s a pity, not having this opportunity, as orchestra is an “instrument”, which I would like to explore more regularly.
The last work, which I composed, was perto do coração selvagem for toy poiano. It was premiered in Italy by the pianist Antonietta Loffredo, at the Risounanze 2014 – incontri di nuove musiche. This is a work which takes its title from one of the books by Clarice Lispector, and which in this way pays tribute to this writer who was and is so important in my growth.
For 2015 I have already planned various concerts and projects, in Brazil, the USA, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.
How do you see the future of art music?
SC: I don’t know and frankly I think that nobody knows! Things change from one day to another, and everything is different. Personally I would like there to be less competitiveness and more opportunities; that is why I depend greatly on developing collaborative projects for creation, open to everyone. Within my own limitations I try to create conditions to provide spaces for dialogue and education, developing projects for creation of new works, both musical and interdisciplinary. Frankly speaking, I feel quite concerned with the lack of responsibility assumed by the state organisms, which should be devoted to stimulate creation. However, thankfully there are individuals and institutions not loosing hope… I think that as long as we have some willpower, with more or less support music will continue to exist.
Sara Carvalho's official website: www.saracarvalho.com
Sara Carvalho, December 2014
© MIC.PT
