Filamentos translated and reproduced this interview with the Diário Insular newspaper, to bring to our diaspora the amazing creativity that is occurring daily in the Azores. We at PBBI-Fresno State were very happy to sponsor this CD, as it highlighted the work of Natália Correia, whose work we continue to promote through our Cátedra Natália Correia at PBBI-Fresno State.

The “Línguas de Fogo” project returns to Angra do Heroísmo on October 25, where it was presented in 2023 at the Teatro Angrense, when it was still in its infancy. What can you reveal about this show at the Angra do Heroísmo Cultural and Congress Center?

This show will be special because it is, in essence, a return to our first home: it was in Terceira two years ago that we began working together in person on the process of composing the songs in our repertoire. It is also where Antonella lives, I used to live here, and Gianna and Isabel also have ties here, so we always feel comfortable and welcome. What’s cool about this group is that the fact that we live on four different islands, which can be negative or challenging at times, turns out to be positive in that we have gained more ‘home islands’, since each island where one of us lives becomes a safe haven for the others to return to, where we work, create, deepen our personal and professional relationships, and feel good. Playing in Angra for the second time, but in a larger and even more renowned venue in the city, will be comfortable on the one hand. Still, on the other, it will be an added responsibility, since at the last concert we had not yet released our debut album and were still playing as a quartet. Two years later, the repertoire is much more mature, the arrangements have changed, and this time, as on the album, we will be joined by guest Sónia Cabrita on drums, which further consolidates our sound and dynamic. We are sure that those who heard us in 2023 will be pleasantly surprised if they come to listen to us now—they will witness a much more cohesive, confident group at the top of their game. Oh, and as usual in the concerts we have been doing to present the album, there will be a surprise or two that will enrich the audience’s experience as they get to know or relive Natália in a variety of artistic ways!

This project was born out of an artistic residency on Terceira Island. What do you remember about that process?

It was a very beautiful process. We had less than four days to build and arrange songs based on ideas or structures that each of us brought from our individual work. It was super interesting to give shape to some paths, change others almost completely, and even build parts that were missing to validate others. This joint process ended up lending part of each of us to all the themes and really ‘forced’ us to fulfill our big goal, which was to leave our comfort zone of playing other people’s music to produce our own music, which brings us much closer to an individual musical ‘incarnation’ of the poet. These were days when we also got to know each other better, learned to play together, and, incredibly, were together the most so far, except for the week we recorded the album. The truth is that we always have limited time to develop this project, because to work together we always have to travel and leave other professional and family commitments behind—this was the only time we didn’t have to record or prepare for a recording, nor did we have to rehearse for a concert, so we could simply enjoy the process with lots of tea and coffee and Italian food and biscuits!

On this return to Terceira, are you planning a new residency or the creation of new themes inspired by the poetry of Natália Correia?

This won’t be the time for a new creative residency, firstly because the end of the year is always a busier time and more difficult to coordinate in terms of work, and secondly because we are still riding the wave of presentations of this album released in March, and what this repertoire has to offer. Even so, I think it will soon be time to get together again to create and expand our repertoire, but not in the way people probably expect… Natália’s poetry became an ‘excuse’ to kick-start a group we had wanted to create for some time. The truth is that our first experience playing together was in 2022 in a larger group created at the ‘SeaWomen’ residency at the Pico Zen Festival, and even the,n we had already produced some original repertoire setting poems by Madalena Férin, Judite Canha Fernandes, Conceição Maciel, and also our own texts to music. The group created at that residency did not continue. Still, at the end of that year, we started talking about creating a ‘satellite group’ composed solely of artists residing in the Azores. The fact that Natália’s centenary was celebrated in 2023 guided our choice of work to undertake and poet to honor, giving rise to the repertoire of our first album. However, the truth is that the initial idea of this group, even before we became ‘Línguas’, was always to explore the works of various more or less contemporary authors and create an original repertoire based on them, so our path will most likely continue in that direction in the future. The fact that it was Natália who ‘gave birth’ to us is the best possible godmotherhood, because she is undoubtedly ‘The’ reference in insular poetry in the feminine and conveys the energy from which we always want to drink. Even so, the islands and the country are fertile in minor or unknown female poetic voices, so we will have plenty to work with for years and years if we wish to continue!

What captivates you most about Natália’s poetry?

That her poetry is a gateway to discovering her as a complex, multifaceted, rich, and extremely human being—full of doubts, contradictions, convictions, and passions! Natália’s texts address many facets of her human experience, from childhood to relational and romantic aspects, to her existential and identity issues, as well as her political and social convictions. Speaking only of her poetry, we can find very diverse subjects and styles throughout the decades and published books, and even more so if we extend to her prose or dramatic texts. This fullness of artistic creation is very inspiring and opens doors for anyone who reads her to find a dimension with which they can easily identify or that is easy to like. Above all, she is very human, relatable, and true for those who read her. Although many of her poems can be difficult to set to music due to issues of meter, linguistic complexity, or length, it was an immense pleasure and a great learning experience to get to know and research her vast body of work to select the texts to work with.

Earlier this year, you released your first CD, “Celebrar Natália Correia.” Where have you performed this work, and what upcoming shows do you have scheduled?

The album was launched in March at the Luís de Camões Auditorium of the Ponta Delgada Regional Conservatory, and it was a very special show in which we had several guests reciting Natália’s poetry, playing and dancing to our songs, sharing the stage with us and representing the multiplicity of artistic expressions in which women excel. We then held concerts to present the album at Atlântida Cine in Santa Maria and at the Pico Zen Festival in a show shared with Zeca Medeiros, a milestone in our journey. This show in Angra will complete the tour of our home islands, so from here on, the goal is undoubtedly to play on the islands where we have not yet been and also to work to extend our activities to the mainland, where we can imagine our project fitting into literary festivals, for example, or municipal concert halls, possibly on commemorative dates associated with literature, poetry, or women in art. We have produced this album with great commitment and dedication, and we are certain that it does justice to the best of Azorean artistic creation and will find its place anywhere in our country. It would be difficult to better extol our mother tongue, island resilience, poetry, original musical production, and female artistic creation than we have in this album, and we are eager to share it with more people in more places!

“Tongues of fire.” The album “Celebrar Natália Correia” has already been presented on the islands of São Miguel, Santa Maria, and Pico.

Poetry in the feminine

“The truth is that the initial idea of this group, even before we were the ‘Línguas’, was always to explore the works of various more or less contemporary female authors and create an original repertoire based on them, so our path will most likely continue in that direction in the future. The fact that it was Natália who ‘gave birth’ to us is the best possible godmotherhood, because she is undoubtedly ‘The’ reference for female island poetry and conveys the energy we always want to drink from. Even so, the islands and the country are fertile in minor or unknown female poetic voices, so we will have plenty to do for years and years if we wish to continue.”

New stages

“We produced this album with great commitment and dedication, and we are certain that it does justice to the best of Azorean artistic creation and that it will have a place on its own merits anywhere in our country. It would be difficult to better extol our mother tongue, island resilience, poetry, original musical production, and female artistic creation than we have done on this album, and we are eager to show it to more people in more places.“

”Tongues of fire.“ ”Our main goal was to step out of our comfort zone of playing other people’s music to produce our own music.”

In Diário Insular-José Lourenço-director.

filamentos by PBBI-Fresno State is sponsored in part by the Luso-American Education Foundation.

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