Carlos Alberto Augusto’s A Parábola (The Parable) is a cycle of pieces for instrument(s), a pre-recorded track, and the musician/actor’s spoken voice.
Augusto has produced four pieces of the cycle thus far: Akinesis for viola (2001); The Moment of Being (O momento de ser) for marimba, glockenspiel and small percussion (2007); A observação do Tempo (Observing Time) for snare drums (2023); and a new piece, for classical and baroque guitars, and small percussion, is about to premier.
Other solo pieces, as well as ensemble pieces which pose another class of problems, are in the works and will be ready in the not too distant future. Since the text is to be spoken, it can be translated into any language. The first ones were originally written and performed in English; the newer ones were initially written and are performed in Portuguese.
Not exactly small operas (even though there is a sort of libretto, there is almost no singing involved), nor music-theatre in the traditional, “avant-gardesque” sense of the word, they were certainly somehow inspired by Luciano Berio’s Sequenze.
The electronic part is a crucial element in these pieces. It is a sort of commentary soundtrack, orchestra, and implicit soundscape, exclusively based on the diverse sounds produced by the instrument for which the piece is written (sometimes the very instrument used in performance), and are totally processed in Kyma.
The new piece, titled A Lei Natural (The Natural Law) is written for classical and baroque guitars, and will premier on September 9th at the Garcia de Resende Theatre, in Évora Portugal, together with the other 3 pieces of the series. This concert will be repeated September 20th at the Caldas da Rainha Convention and Cultural Center, also in Portugal.
The Kyma-produced eTracks (as he calls them) are one of the cornerstones of this project, and one of the decisive reasons he chose to work in Kyma, back in 2000.
The pictures are from a concert that included the snare drums (Andrés Pérez) and the viola (Jorge Alves) pieces.