Composer, sound designer, lecturer, acoustic communication specialist and teacher, Carlos Alberto Augusto, performed the premiere of his new project Marthyia de Abdul Hamid at Teatro da Rainha on 5 April 2025 in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal.
In the live performance of Marthyia de Abdul Hamid, based on the words of Portuguese poet Alberto Pimenta, the composer recites the poem and his voice is processed through Kyma which generates live “sonic trimmings and toppings”.
Augusto uses a small Intech Studio controller and a Wacom tablet to control parameters of the sounds used in the production, and he uses the Kyma Control iPad app to trigger a Multigrid. He uses a DPA headset mic and two PZMs to capture his voice and use it to control some of the Kyma sounds.
The performance evokes the action of “sound writing”, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
Augusto identifies the theme of the work as “a conflict that seems to have no end in sight.”
…there is something perennial in this Marthiya of Abdel Hamid, in this tragedy, in this permanent lesson that persists in remaining, most of the time, unlearned, and that keeps resisting. All of this gives more strength to my own resistance… The solution I have come to understand… is the concept of “in between”, formulated by my dear friend… António de Sousa Dias.
Within the sound palette… there are periods in which the sound background is “in between” the real pre-recorded sounds I use and my live voice. It is “in between” the music and the sound design. It is “in between” a real sound universe and another, totally artificial one. “In between” the audible-visible and the imagined-invisible. There are moments that remind us that we are all caught “in between” our ridiculous and reassuring daily lives and this conflict(s), with no end in sight, that has haunted us for too long, to which we pay only occasional attention…
