The title, “Aleppo”, was chosen to meet the context of its première, to be featured in a
concert under the concept “Crossings”. Crossings of languages and diverse sources
but, also, of different geographies. The word has the double meaning of “passing
through” and “intersection”. And, therefore, I tried to write a piece that would cross
different musical sources - with a special interest in the Middle East - and that would
pay tribute to those that daily put their lives in risk crossing the Mediterranean Sea,
escaping from various conflicts and adversity.
With an approximate duration of ten minutes, the piece is written for three
percussionists who share two vibraphones and go through the various registers of the
instruments in undulating and circular movements. At the root of these spirals is a
variation of a melodic line taken from Archipelago - a piece for solo vibraphone and
wah-wah tubes, which I wrote in 2009 for the percussionist Miquel Bernat. The aquatic
character of this piece appears here recovered as a starting point for a music that, not
making use of any instrument other than vibraphones, nevertheless explores varied
timbral solutions, through the use of different drumsticks, cello bows and vibrato
techniques. Spiralling is dedicated to Claire Irwin
Dos Ramos à Raiz was written in response to an invitation from the Castelo Branco City
Council and had its premiere on October 5, 2020 at the Cine-Teatro Avenida in the
same city, performed by Carlos Alves and the string quartet “João Roiz Ensemble”. The
commission had as its motto the poem by Ruy Belo “O Portugal Futuro” (in Homem de
Palavras[s], 1970), and its premiere was scheduled by the venue to coincide with the
celebrations of the Implantation of the republican regime in Portugal.
Prolonging (2021) for violoncello solo was commissioned by the Royal Academy of
Music as part of its 200 Pieces project / bicentenary celebrations. The piece uses
gestures and musical material taken from the solo part of my Cello Concerto’s second
movement, that were then developed, expanded, sometimes “frozen”, or even
combined with new material.
Forgotten Places was commissioned by the ACARTE Service of the Calouste Gulbenkian
Foundation and was dedicated to the Moscow Piano Quartet, who gave its première in
Lisbon, in June 1998. The score was written also as part of the completion of my MMus
studies in London and reflects a certain sense of nostalgia related to the physical
distance from images archived in my memory.
Luís Tinoco’s Biography
Luís Tinoco (b.1969) graduated at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. Later, in the
UK, he completed a MMus at the Royal Academy of Music, in London, and a PhD at the
University of York. Since 2000 he has worked as a freelance author and producer of new
music radio programmes for the Antena 2 / RTP. For this same radio station, Tinoco is
the artistic director of the Young Musicians Prize and Festival. He lectures at the Escola
Superior de Música de Lisboa. Tinoco’s catalogue includes works for chamber, orchestra
and stage music. Recent works which stand out are commissions from the Orquestra
Gulbenkian, Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Sinfónica Portuguesa, Metropolitana
de Lisboa, Sinfónica do Estado de São Paulo, Seattle Symphony and Orchestre
Philharmonique de Radio France, among others. His music is published by the University
of York Music Press and is available on portrait CDs issued by the Odradek, Naxos and
Lorelt labels. Since 2016 he has been an “Associate of the Royal Academy of Music”
(ARAM).