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).