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The piece is inspired by my own childhood growing up in the District of Viseu, in Portugal. Having lived until my late teenage years in the sub-urban areas of Viseu, I was often taken to visit my grandparents village of Douro Calvo, in the region of Satão. Drawing from young memories I recall the close affinity of the population with the land, the hardship of work, the passionate religious faith and the tight social connections within the village. These cultural and social traits are clearly audible in the recordings provided by the Binaural/Nodar archive, from which I selected a handful of recordings that better suit the purpose behind this composition.
“Terra e Fé” is an electroacoustic composition on the hardships of work and faith in the divine. The composition is divided into two sections of intent, connected by free improvisation.
The first section depicts arduous work, achieved by implementing the sounds of farming (Couto de Cima), revolving earth, and mechanical factory sounds (Couto de Baixo), placed in the time frame through the use of aleatory techniques. The aleatory placement of the sound objects reflects the randomness of life whilst still keeping a continuous seemingness pattern. Limestone and granite stones recorded within a rural Portuguese granite wall initiate a transition between sections, a sound which I vividly recall from my childhood memories.
The second section is preceded by a segment of one of the archive recordings (093), a free improvisation with found objects which perfectly suits the layering of church bells and the introduction of a religious theme. Harmonic frequencies of several soundscapes, also provided in the audio files, are then enhanced and manipulated, creating an etherial and nostalgic texture which, layered by the procession chants in Ribafeita (Procissao de Ramos), and later accompanied by a live cello, sonically portraits a scene of worship, devotion and connection with the divine. The cello notes are purposely elongated at times, as to aid the sonic mantra of the section. By juxtaposing these sonic elements, my intention was to create an organic and ever changing aural drone which would not only reflect the continuity of life, but also celebrate it.
These religious processions not only emphasise community feelings and religious sentiment but, in my opinion, are also vehicles of hope and faith in the eternal. Passing down through multiple generations they acquire an undeniable culture significance of social cohesiveness and personal identity.
In order to reflect these ideas the piece ends with all elements filtered into a single continuous harmonic texture.
Biography:
Virgilio Oliveira Is an audio artist and sound recordist born in Viseu, Portugal (b.1979), currently based in London. His body of work is extensively linked with the field recording practise and the attentive listening of the acoustic environment. His audio work has been presented in such places has the SoundWaves and Popkatu Festivals, Resonance FM, Framework Radio, among many others. He is also a collaborator of the Naturesoundmap.com as a sound recordist, and the creator of the Douro river sound map; an ongoing acoustic documental project about one of the major rivers in the Iberian Peninsula. He holds a bachelors degree in Sound Arts and Design from the University of the Arts London, where he is also undertaking a Masters in Documentary Film.
- Genre
- Electroacoustic Music