Brazilian-Canadian pianist Luciane Cardassi is a true ally to living composers. She’s a passionate advocate for contemporary music of many persuasions—from the intimate to the assertive, from lyrical to abstract—and yet also has carved out an unmistakeable identity as an interpreter. The performance that she’s provided for CMC Presents is a testament to this, demonstrating her adventurous sensibility and extraordinary sensitivity with a trio of voice and piano works by Canadian composers Nova Pon and Emilie Lebel and Brazilian Antonio Celso Ribeiro.
In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, Luciane Cardassi would like to honour and acknowledge that Banff, her home, is situated on the traditional territories of the peoples of the Treaty 7 Territory, comprised of the Stoney Nakoda Nations of Wesley, Chiniki, and Bearspaw; three Nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy: the Pikani, Kainai, and Siksika; and the Tsuu T’ina of the Dene people.
PROGRAM
Myosotis (2012), Nova Pon
for vocal pianist
text by Monica Meneghetti
Longing (2011) Emilie Cecilia LeBel
for piano
text by Sue Sinclair
3 Baladas do Amor Amargo, “1. Noémia” (2015) Antonio Celso Ribeiro
for piano and recitation
text by Noémia de Souza
Over the past twenty years, Banff-based, Brazilian-Canadian pianist Luciane Cardassi has established herself as one of her instrument’s most impressive and intriguing interpretive voices—as agile behind the keyboard as she is insightful in navigating various aesthetic terrains.
Winner of an Açorianos prize for her debut album, Prelúdios em Porto Alegre, she has performed across Canada, the US, Brazil, Mexico and the UK. Luciane is active as both a soloist and a chamber musician, and frequently explores creation at the intersection of multiple artistic disciplines. Her string of recent solo albums on Redshift Records, as well as brocade by rockeys duo—her collaboration with Katelyn Clark—document her sharp curatorial sense and vast experience as a creative collaborator. The latest of said discs, is Going North: “Very generous in emotions, the program acts as a testimony of love and friendship towards these composers she collaborates with… a captivating and passionate work of art.” (Norman Babin, Neomemoire)
Luciane holds a Doctorate in Contemporary Music Performance from the University of California, San Diego and remains an avid researcher and writer exploring various facets of recent concert music. Her main teachers have been Aleck Karis, Ney Fialkow, Celso Loureiro Chaves, Antonio Carlos Borges Cunha, and her piano teacher of many years, Heloisa Zani, a major influence upon Luciane’s music making. Luciane’s artistic practice has been generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, CAPES Brazil Foundation and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The beautiful surroundings of the Canadian Rockies continue to inspire her creative practice. Photo: Lia Sfoggia
Myosotis by Nova Pon
Monica Meneghetti’s poem Myosotis captured the sense of wondrous aliveness I feel while trekking through the Rocky Mountains, and inspired me with how a poem, or even a forget-me-not flower, can rekindle such a feeling. In response, I sought to create a musical invocation, and convey my sense of the poem through sound integrated with text. Through the course of the work, a short musical motif is developed to evoke both the outer surroundings and inner mental states, incorporated with extended use of the piano strings, striving for the unique, heightened intensity of mountain experiences.
Longing by Emilie Cecilia LeBel
Longing is part of a cycle of songs entitled On faith, work, leisure & sleep. It is the final work of the six pieces in the cycle, for various combinations of piano, pianist’s voice, text, electronics, and video. The project was written in close collaboration with pianist Luciane Cardassi. The works employ poetry by Canadian Sue Sinclair as the source material for the content of the work, such as structure, pacing, and thematic content.
3 Baladas do Amor Amargo by Antonio Celso Ribeiro
The piece is a mini opera for piano and pianist’s voice. It is a tribute to three of the most important female poets of African-Galician-Portuguese origin: Noémia de Souza, from Mozambique, Rosalía de Castro, from Galícia and Florbela Espanca, from Portugal. The poems deal with the unpredictable changes in life, focusing on resentment, melancholia, solitude, abandonment and bitterness, caused by love or its absence. The piece is organized in the form of short “scenes” — like a mini-opera — in 3 continuous movements (I — Noémia; II — Rosalía; III — Florbela). The first movement has 3 scenes, the second movement has only one, and the third movement is again in 3 scenes, in A-B-A form. The scenes explore the virtuosity and dramatic capabilities of the performer. The piano works not as accompaniment but as the “medium” through which the various characters are embodied by the pianist. The piece makes great use of the resonance of the piano. On an emotional level, the work transits between extremes: from the discomfort culminating with a shout, to the sweetness of some short musical gestures on the piano, and ending with an intense feminine lucidity about a failed love affair. Only the first movement – Noemia – is included in this performance. The complete piece is available on youtube and on Luciane Cardassi’s soundcloud.
Myosotis by Monica Meneghetti (Canada)
Recall how the sky-blue alpine
forget-me-not in Latin sounds like
my-oh-so-tis, like, “oh my! so it is” – a discovery.
Remember how, mind-altered from hours of pure air, you returned
to Skoki’s main lodge, and reclined on the daybed, still
tingling from the spell of tarn and meadow.
What did you wish for then? A reminder
of sensation:
head-to-toe hum,
bones tuned to pitch of peaks.
You wanted a touchstone for your wild
senses, for how your vision loses zoom, becomes wide-angled eye
so you may see
fescue and bluegrass relinquish
their single blades to form tussocks of undulation,
while in the same wind,
spruce and pine list
in unison like the fur of an enormous mammal.
Leaving for home, you passed the lake named Myosotis.
“oh, ‘tis so mine” – an affirmation.
You needed a poem.
I gave you a blossom of sound.
Longing by Sue Sinclair (Canada)
Tired of being alone, especially at night.
The stars broke down in the sky, engines stalled,
shining, waiting for rescue.
The height of things stares down at you.
You settle into the night’s own loneliness,
let the universe expand, stretch like a curing hide.
Someday the absence on the other side
will show through, unquantified:
if history is an animal, this is its pain,
an unspoken reproach, the throbbing in the vein
that accompanies the inevitable going forth,
you or someone like you taking the place
of the unborn, feeling their stare.
Is the great beauty of things somehow visible to itself?
If so, is it enough? For how quickly it vanishes,
becomes its own ghost. And then there is you:
you have only the barest idea of what you’ll leave behind.
History must feel its failures vividly.
You wonder if it heard the chorus fade away
when you were born, for you grew up
knowing nothing of the echoes that surrounded you,
still less of the voices that will be lost when you leave.
Em vez de lágrimas + Teias da memória by Noémia de Souza (Mozambique)
| Em vez de lágrimas
Só um choro em seco |
Instead of tears,
Only a dry cry, |
| Teias da memória
Na baça melancolia do tecto |
Memory’s cobwebs
In the melancholic dull ceiling, |
English translation by L. Cardassi
CMC Presents Multilocation is generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage, The SOCAN Foundation, FACTOR, The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Foundation. This presentation is also supported by The McLean Foundation and the Canada Arts Presentation Fund.
