Vitor Joaquim

Quietude, the piece that now takes on the physical form of a CD, began as a curated commission by Sekoia Artes Performativas for a musical performance. Sekóia's proposal was simple: to create a piece from an extended stay at the Casa do Paço in Vila Meã, a space that inspired Agustina Bessa-Luís in several literary fictions and around which part of the family history told in book “A Sibila” (“The Sibyl”,1954).

As in so many other things, its implementation should have happened, were it not for the pandemic. Again and again, time reminds us that time passes. After an initial delay, and in the impossibility of achieving certainty to produce a global event for the project, which includes other artists, the production of an album was born as an inevitability: it was necessary to move forward and close the cycle resulting from the experience. lived in space, combined with the experience of Agustina's work.

Breathing in that place, living and sleeping in that house, walking along those paths, enjoying the way life progresses through that valley, and in a serpentine way listening to the calm of the tank like an “Olympic swimming pool”.

Feel the magic of the birds chirping in the morning and later the turtledoves, or the cuckoos or even the tolling of the church bell in the distance. And simply breathe.

Such were the “hobbies” that eventually became a full-time occupation during residency.

Quietude, it is like that, and above all, an immense stop in time in a place where the fiction written by Agustina forces us to look at the things of nature in a very special way, a way in which the imagination of what has been her presence in the place is confused with the images that we can make of the characters living in that same place. It's a triple being: Agustina's being, the being of her characters and our own being, which is at the same time a triple fiction in itself. We are no longer what we are.

After a lot of thinking, and for the first time, I decided to have a title and the name of all the themes in Portuguese. Perhaps because only a Portuguese can understand the true meaning of each of these words? Or maybe not, maybe it's just a way of using Agustina's words and images.

"Learning many things doesn't matter, because, after all, everywhere there are seven colors and seven winds, and man is only one"

- Agustina Bessa-Luis, The Sibyl (1954)

All tracks written, played, produced and mastered by Vitor Joaquim at Xara, during 2020/21.

Vitor Joaquim: voice, piano, keyboards, granular synth, electronics, hiss, humming, crackling, trumpet sampling & re-composition.
João Silva: Trumpet
Includes Spectral allusions from Ensemble (1967) by Adamo.

Cover images by Carolina Martins
Cover design by Carlos Santos
(C) (P) Vitor Joaquim (SPA) 2021
vitorjoaquim.pt | joaosilva.music.blog

A piece commissioned by Sekoia / República Portuguesa – Ministério da Cultura

Press Release