What kind of music do you compose and create?
It’s difficult to answer this question. I think that the composer is the worst person to talk about his/her music. However, I will define my music as narrative and colourful music, which uses a contemporary language with some kind of consonances and influences by the spectral music.
Do you live just from your music or do you do other things?
No, I’m a teacher too and work at the Conservatório de Música de Cascais.
What obstacles do you face in your carrier?
In general, I think that there are no conditions for a composer living exclusively on composition. In my country, like in many others, there is a clear disinvestment in culture. Moreover, in the theatres and orchestra houses we usually find directors and orchestra managers betting on music of the past, with a strong tendency for the classical and romantic periods, and therefore it’s almost impossible for young composers to get the opportunity to create new works.
The financial mechanics does not leave much space for new commissions, new productions and concerts with contemporary music from living composers. With this scenario, I have to dedicate myself more to teaching than composing. The proportion is about 90% to 10%. This proportion is reversed. There should be 90% for the composition. Being young, woman and Portuguese are not the best conditions to be a composer, at least in my country.
What do you think it could be done to help women working in music business?
I have read a story in a newspaper recently that, in general, women earn less than men with the same professional position. This is an indicator of the lack of equality that still persists. The historical burden is still very present. Men continue to presiding orchestras, cultural centres, etc. Cultural programmers are men ... There must be a change. Women no longer need to prove their worth. We have proven for centuries that we are equally capable - many of us with the addition of being mothers and housewives. There must be the courage to put women in decision-making positions. So, I am sure that most women composers, singers and soloists would work in the most prestigious cultural organizations.
Tell us about the new work you have composed for the concert series “Incontri con le Compositrici”?
For these Incontri sponsored by the foundation, I wrote Birth for violin solo. This work was composed for my husband, Ricardo Mendes, who is a violinist and shared these presentations with me. It was a gift for him for the birth of our son António, who is already a 4 month baby. When I was released the challenge to apply Incontri, by Miso Music Portugal, I was pregnant and I immediately had the idea for the presentations. My married life is a sharing of life but also of music, and musical creation is very similar to the design and development of human life. Birth is a narrative of the development of the fetus inside the mother's womb until birth.
