Exploring the ambient sound of the immense marble temple of the Portuguese National Pantheon, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva recorded this beautiful and spiritual solo improvisation as part of the Rescaldo Festival, adding tin whistle and bells as her stunning tone and impressive technique resonated and invoked the spirit of this 17th century monument.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2018 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Panteao Nacional, in Lisbon, Portugal, on February 12th, 2016, by Cristiano Nunes.
"Every solo album with a horn is a difficult task, and that's the reason why so few are released on record or played on the stage. No-one else is there to give you cues, to challenge you: your creativity and your technical skills are the only resources available. Or so it seems, because in a solo situation you're dueling with two presences: one, of course, is the audience, and as Derek Bailey used to say, a solo is a duo with the people who listens, but the other is even more determinant, the space around you, sometimes acting very much like there's another musician around. "Prayers" is a solo indeed, but in this recording trumpeter Susana Santos Silva is improvising with the architecture of the National Pantheon / Santa Engracia's Church in Lisbon, namely with its marble acoustics and huge reverberation - each phrasing, each texture is molded by the building, adding other elements to the original sound of the trumpet. Santos Silva works with her knowledge of the instrument andits possibilities, reacting to the transformations resulting from the harmonic action of the space. She's rediscovering the exploratory, experimental side of free improvisation, somewhat lost during decades of gradually fixed procedures."-Clean Feed