Explore the concept of a song through different cultural and conceptual interpretation with Cristiano Melli at Studio LOOS
A portrait of Cristiano’s Melli chamber vocal music
Soprano – Christina Schönbach
Piano – Ivan Pavlov
Viola – Jieun Kim
Direction – Cristiano Melli
Video – Petra Dolleman
Production – Cristiano Melli and Peter van Bergen
The genre of Art Song has some of the most beautiful and crafted works in Western Classical music. By focusing on a very intimate setting, its strength emanates from a rich relation between instrument and voice, their humanity flowing through the interaction of sounds and words.
Cristiano Melli is a Brazilian composer currently based in The Hague, Netherlands, and since 2019 is an associated artist in Studio LOOS. Before his Bachelor and Master degrees from the Royal Conservatorium in The Hague, he studied in Brazil with Osvaldo Lacerda and Almeida Prado, composers who understood in a deep level the possibilities and beauty that resonates from the human voice in a chamber music setting. Similar to the German lied and the French chanson, the Brazilian art song tradition of canção has a rich history, with jazz and world music championing its popularity. Mr Melli’s output in this genre is varied and covers his whole career as a composer, sometimes focusing in pure musical form but also often integrating theatrical and unexpected elements.
Divided in two parts, WHICH SONGS ARE THESE? starts with two stand-alone songs (Velocidade and Não me procures ali). Next comes the absolute premiere of 3 Cantos de Ar , followed by Serafim Ponte Pequena. Both are small song cycles of 3 songs each, sometimes funny but always rich in its melodic power, compositional craft and surprising twists in its soundscape. The second half has a scenic song cycle for soprano, viola and piano (Which Wor(l)ds are These?) with an uncanny mixture of absurd theater, improvisation and Dadaist text, a musical a challenge worth of the artists involved as well as an apt end for such a concert.
This concert was developed as a live performance, which now (due to the new corona restrictions) has been adapted to a video format. We look forward to performing it in front of a live audience in the near future. The concert was made possible with a Makersregeling subsidy from the municipality of The Hague, and is a LOOS Foundation production.