The “Línguas de Fogo” project launches its debut album on Friday at the Ponta Delgada Conservatory. How did this CD come about, and what themes did you choose for this first work?

This record arose from the desire to create an audio record accessible to the public with our original repertoire of Natália Correia’s poetry. In 2023, we composed several songs based on the writer’s poems, and then we started playing them live on different islands. The most frequent question from the public was where they could hear our record… and our answer was that they couldn’t yet! We felt it was a shame that the enthusiasm of those who listened to us and liked the project should die there, so we decided to move on to a record that, on the one hand, would legitimize and eternalize the original product we had created, and, on the other, would fulfill our initial goal of bringing Natália’s poetry closer to new audiences through the musical vehicle (which we know is privileged for spreading it on a wider scale). The 10 songs we composed and arranged, plus an extra song was given to the group by the young artist Irene Castro, feature on this album, with poems on different themes such as ‘Auto-retrato’, ‘Ricochete’, ‘Páscoa’, ‘Andar não me custa nada’ or ‘Eu venho do sonho’.

This project was born out of an artistic residency, which brought together four female musical voices – Sara Miguel, Gianna de Toni, Antonella Barletta, and Isabel Mesquita – around the poetry of Natália Correia. What is your assessment of the journey since that first meeting?

The journey has been challenging but also very rewarding. When we got together in Terceira in 2023 to compose the songs, we were full of ‘ganas’ to work, imbued with a kind of spirit of mission and a certain rebelliousness in creating a project only made up of women who play, sing, compose and produce, which would be inspiring for other artists and young people, but also somewhat reactionary because it would carry Natália’s combative spirit as its banner and would affirm a vision of the Azorean territory that didn’t see the limits of the islands as barriers to cooperation and artistic interdisciplinarity… In just under two years, we created a repertoire from scratch, performed three live concerts, prepared the recording of the album with the inclusion of guest Sónia Cabrita on drums (adding a new dynamic to the arrangements and the group’s sound), and carried out this recording in a process with several parts and trips to the studio until we finished its production and are now about to release it to the world. It sounds like a long time, but it really isn’t, especially since, despite being professional musicians, almost all of us have other professional activities alongside performing, we live on four different islands and one of us became a mother for the first time during this period! Weighing up all the challenges and specificities of our process, we’ve done a lot during these two years and accomplished goals we didn’t even know we had at the beginning of our journey as Línguas de Fogo!

What challenges have you encountered in making this CD a reality?

There are several challenges inherent to the circumstances of our group that have been carried over into the production of this album, such as the simple fact of being able to rehearse as a group: we have to find dates when we are all available, schedule a few consecutive days of intensive work when we all have to travel to get together on the same island, face all the logistical issues of travel, accommodation, rehearsal venue, and necessary material, etc… All this presupposes financial and time investments for all of us and even then it doesn’t guarantee us the ideal situation of having a periodicity of work that would be ideal for creating a joint sound and ‘breathing’ as a band. By including Sónia as a special guest on this album and in the group, there was again this intense process of musical and personal adaptation to someone we didn’t know and who comes from the continent to work with us, with all the challenges that entails. We were fortunate that she liked us and the music we make and that she is a super adaptable artist, which immediately enhanced our sound and consolidated the project, giving us more comfort and security when it came to playing. We also had the privilege of working with Emanuel Cabral, who took over the reins of production for this album and was a constant source of tranquillity, wisdom, professionalism, efficiency, and good taste, allowing us to reach a successful conclusion without despairing too much! Being able to record the rhythm section of this album in the Black Box of the Arquipélago Centro de Artes Contemporâneas was also a privilege, as was collaborating with artists linked to photography, video, and design such as Marta Cabral, Margarida Quinteiro, AustejaLi,u and Júlia Garcia to produce the album’s graphic content and the music video for our debut single ‘Páscoa’. Obviously, an undertaking of this scale entails huge costs, especially when we make a point of paying all the artists who collaborate in the creative process. One of the biggest challenges was (and still is) to finance the entire production of this album, which we managed to do hand in hand with the collaboration of public and private entities to whom we pay tribute for being promoters of culture and supporting regional artistic production. We would like to thank the municipal councils of Angra do Heroísmo and Vila do Porto, the Fajã de Baixo Parish Council, the Fresno State Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (Natália Correia Chair), the Rotary Club of Ponta Delgada, Novo Banco dos Açores and JosselynMajors from the bottom of our hearts for putting us on the path to achieving this goal!

How has the audience reacted to Línguas de Fogo “Tongues of Fire”?

The reaction of the public couldn’t be better and was, in fact, what most motivated us to take on the great challenge of producing and releasing an album: the people who have listened to us are always generous in their praise and enthusiasm for our musical proposal! We realized that it is a very strong and distinctive experience for the audience to see four women on stage in the more common musical roles of vocalists and as instrumentalists and composers. We also realized that through unpretentious and easy-to-like songs, the sometimes profound and complex messages of Natália’s poetry insinuate themselves into the listener more easily, like an enchantment that turns the lock of perception and opens the box of emotional and intellectual identification of each one with the imagery of the writer. Most of the audience’s comments always go in this direction, saying that after our concert, the desire to read or discover more about Natália increased exponentially, and the closeness to the word and poetry became a desire and a need! Hearing this is the best thing for us, and we assume ourselves almost as resistant at a time when most of the disseminated commercial music is incredibly poor in message and literary significance. The themes touched on by Natália remain urgently topical. We consider it necessary to reflect on this reality as a way of understanding what should already have changed in the world we live in and how we can make a difference in the change we want to see, just as she did in everything she was, assumed and represented in our country’s society. We don’t want our Languages to be just a ‘sweet mouth’ – we want symbolism and meaning, we want to be a voice and give voice, we want to take risks, represent and inspire, be part of the answer to the questions that need to be asked in society, in art, in culture, in the Azores, in the country, in the world!

After the Ponta Delgada Conservatory, what stages will you be playing on to present this new work?

The launch concert in Ponta Delgada is going to be a very special night – as well as playing for the first time on the island where Natália was born, we’ll be sharing the stage with Sónia on drums for the first time and having Emanuel Cabral at the controls of the sound, a team reunited, a joy! We’ll also have the enormous privilege of having some very special guest artists on stage to recite – Margarida Benevides, Raquel Faria, Eleonora Marino Duarte, and Filipa Gomes – play – Irene Castro – and dance – Bia Graça – to our music. Bringing so many women together on stage to celebrate Natália on World Poetry Day in a house dedicated to artistic training like the Ponta Delgada Regional Conservatory is so symbolic that it’s hard to repeat! We advise everyone who loves music and poetry and wants to support artistic creation on the island to be present on March 21 at 9:30 p.m. to join our manifesto! The following day, March 22, we will have the great joy of playing live on the island of Sol, in partnership with the Santa Maria Museum, on the Atlântida Cine Centro de Cultura stage. It will also be an emotional evening in the ‘cradle’ of our Isabel Mesquita and on an island where we prepared the recordings and where we have many friends. On April 25, there will be another unrepeatable event that fills us with pride, this time in Pico (where we made our debut in 2023) – a concert shared with the enormous Zeca Medeiros to sing freedom loud and clear at the Pico Zen Festival! Three dates on three islands to celebrate the muse Natália Correia to the sound of Línguas de Fogo!

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication at California State University, Fresno, PBBI thanks the Luso-American Education Foundation for their support.