“A Laugh to Cry” - composition commission issued to Miguel Azguime

Miso Music, Portugal

Following the groundbreaking New Op-Era performances of the “Salt Itinerary”, which toured extensively all around the world, the new Miguel Azguime's stage work will continue and expand the ideas of text and music integration, in which the voice is at the core of dramaturgy, multiplying itself in several directions (by means of audiovisual technology) and embodying different realms (spoken, sung and hyper-voice). The Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation supports the commission of “A Laugh to Cry”, the new opera by Miguel Azguime. The opera's main dramaturgical quest is focused on the following question: how to bring together, as a way of representation, the fantastic dimensions of a myth and the vulgarity of contemporary reality? The libretto pursues Miguel Azguime’s goal, as composer and poet, to grasp an ideal balance between language and music, to merge the language’s poetic components with its sonic values, in order to achieve his concept of “speech as music / music as speech”. The text is multilingual in a wish to conquer different cultures and realities, as well as to overcome the limitations of language perceived as a closed environment bound to signification. “A Laugh to Cry” extends Miguel Azguime’s research on human voice analysis, re-synthesis and processing, aiming at creating a dynamic continuum between timbre, harmony, rhythm and voice spectra.

July, 17th and 18th 2013 Teatro Sâo Luiz (avant-première), Lisbon, Portugal
September 27th 2013 "Warsaw Autumn" International Contemporary Music Festival (première), Poland

Further Information: 
www.misomusic.com