Part 2

Collaborations can take on many forms. What role do they play in your approach and what are your preferred ways of engaging with other creatives, such as the ensembles you're working with? 


Music is above all a language, a form of communication. It is very important that what I say is understood.

Different ensembles have different cultures, realities, and profiles. In a large orchestra, we need to make good decisions and be as clear as possible in communication. In a chamber orchestra, we have a group of people with a certain degree of independence who need a direction more within a spirit of chamber music, with a more open dialogue. In an ensemble like “K”, in the formation of 15 soloists, we have an even more different approach, it’s really conducting the music not the musicians.
 
It's like driving a truck, a car or a motorcycle, each orchestra, each ensemble is different, you need to understand as quickly as possible how each one works (if possible, in the first 3 minutes of your first rehearsal) to know how to communicate efficiently.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please. Do you have a fixed schedule? How do music and other aspects of your life feed back into each other - do you separate them or instead try to make them blend seamlessly?


In general, I travel two weeks a month to rehearsals and concerts. The weeks I'm not travelling, in general, I take breakfast with my husband and daughter, then I study in the morning, I have a lunch with someone of my team or my family and after lunch I go to the office and I work other things (emails, organising projects, interviews, meetings, etc).

The weeks when I travel are very busy, in general six-hour rehearsal days, and more meetings and concerts. It can be quite physical, and I can lose 1 kg in these weeks (unfortunately I get it back again after!). I have a good routine, no alcohol, no sugar, good sleep time, and physical exercises.


Can you talk about a breakthrough work, event or performance in your career? Why does it feel special to you? When, why and how did you start working on it, what were some of the motivations and ideas behind it?

It’s curious that people say I'm innovative or I create breakthrough works. I remember some critics saying this about the first CD Accents by Ensemble K, and also about the Amazonas project with Sebastiao Salgado or yet about the film Metanoia that doesn't really fit in the existing boxes, neither a portrait of an artist nor a documentary.

I don't intend to innovate by doing something different, I just intend to do something that makes sense for me, for my audience, for my time. I guess I would love to have a normal conductor career in a traditional orchestra conducting each week a program composed by overture, concerto, and symphony, just trying to make it with excellence and bring my interpretation for this audience. But somehow, my life gave me different opportunities and drove me towards a path where I was obliged to be more creative.


There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? What supports this ideal state of mind and what are distractions? Are there strategies to enter into this state more easily?


Hmm… creative state... first of all, not being stressed. For me, seeing other artists, meeting interesting people, taking a walk-in nature, are fundamental things for the creative state.

The distractions are social media, pessimistic people, getting a lot of news without a proper filter.

Creative idleness is still important, time to get out of productive mode into rambling mode, and do it guilt-free!


Music and sounds can heal, but they can also hurt. Do you personally have experiences with either or both of these? Where do you personally see the biggest need and potential for music as a tool for healing?

Absolutely! In the book “The Hidden Life of Trees” it talks about the influence that music has over trees, so can you imagine over human beings!

Schoenberg and the Vienna school introduced atonalism, hoping that this would be the new music, however this never really happened. In parallel, film music intuitively began to use tonal and atonal elements to create moods. Then, in the early 80's, research began to emerge on music and cognition and the impact of musical waves on our body. This is not a privilege of the West, even the music of different non-Western peoples presents modal patterns that are antagonistic to atonalism. Confucious said “If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.”

The younger generation needs classical music, if we look at streaming, 35% of the classical music heard today is listened to by people under the age of 25! They don't know musicology, they just click... Mozart, Classical Music, Tchaikovsky. The experience of a concert, the presidential connection of the performance is also very healing!

Our sense of hearing shares intriguing connections to other senses. From your experience, what are some of the most inspiring overlaps between different senses - and what do they tell us about the way our senses work? What happens to sound at its outermost borders?

Undoubtedly the two senses that speak to us immediately are hearing and vision. The power of image and sound over us is incredible. This gives cinema its power. However, other senses may be involved with sound. Recently, talking to the composer Rachel Portman, who composed several film scores, among them Chocolat, she spoke of the relationship between the palate and the music, and how memories can still influence several of our senses.

Sound at its last frontier is wavelike, its harmonizing or dissonant influence on the physical world is enormous. Also, its influence on our memories can provoke such a variety of unexpected and individual reactions.


Art can be a purpose in its own right, but it can also directly feed back into everyday life, take on a social and political role and lead to more engagement. Can you describe your approach to art and being an artist?

Surely art can be a purpose, but historically speaking this is very recent. In cultures such us African or Indian, or many others, the concept of art, as we have today, do not exist. They have something closer of “craftsmanship”, in previous culture everything should have a purpose and be beautiful, bring some meaning. If I need to build a door, it should be beautiful, perhaps sculptural to bring more meaning for the door. The music should be to express joy, fear, sadness, despair, devotion…

In the modern world art can be much more than an end in itself, but it will be always related to a “message” the artists want to share, even if the message is to say “everything is banal” as Andy Warhol did. In this context, majors composers express their passions (like Tchaikovsky), their fate (as Bach) their hope (Beethoven), etc…

What can music express about life and death which words alone may not?

Sound itself is an expression of life. There is a very interesting text from Miguel Wisniks about musical instruments as a resurrection symbol. Historically speaking, Santo Agostini said all instruments are “sacrificial”. The skin of the percussions, the gut strings, the horn, every instrument needed a sacrifice to exist and produce sound. Only exceptions are the flute (when it is not from bone).

In this sense, silence is death, the voice of music is life, the instruments are the resurrection symbol. Music in itself is a break in the death of silence to celebrate life.