Forest Stories
Tania Giannouli
Paulo Chagas
Step by step 5:45
Afternoon forest valse 5:32
This beautiful hard way 5:16
Is this forever? 6:11
Instead of clouds 5:46
Spring’s chronic 12:02
In the deepest night 5:04
The way back home 5:06
I was lucky enough to live near a forest for a few
know about Time? I often have the feeling that
about changing yet being the same, about the sun
and pain - is but a small part of a far greater
short periods in my life. Some of the music on this
Time isn’t expanding in a linear manner, but that
always coming out and shining after a terrible
Reality… and it is not forever. In the forest, we
album was inspired by those times: the light, the
its following its own journey in different directions
storm, about spring always following winter, about
sense what it means to find our way “home”, to
reflections, the colors, the scents, the moods, the
and dimensions. I believe that trees have a better
the cycles of birth and death, and that every step
trust the life within, and to be nothing more or less
skies - moments that were absorbed then, but
understanding of Time, and indeed of life itself,
is a beginning and an end… and then a new
than ourselves.
that continue to exist even though I am not in that
than we humans do. They are old, wise and
beginning. If we listen to the forest, we may realize
place and time anymore. But what do we really
strong, and they know so much about the seasons,
that our own microcosmos - our troubles, fears
Tania Giannouli, 2012
música é um lugar de encontros
espaço especial e único
onde
por mecanismos indecifráveis
se cruzam ideias e emoções
a conjugação dos sons
um procedimento abstracto
absoluto
e por isso tão mágico
a força da música consiste acima de tudo na sua
capacidade agregadora
simples
natural
ao abrigo da música aproximam-se pessoas dos
mais distantes lugares
...
como se estivessem reunidos a contar histórias
numa floresta
Paulo Chagas, 2012
music is a place for encounters
a special and unique place
where ideas and feelings come together
by unfathomable means
a conjugation of sounds
an abstract and absolute
procedure
that makes it magic
the power of music resides above all in its
simple
natural
aggregating capability
the canopy of music brings together people from the
most distant places
…
as if they had gathered in a forest for the telling of
stories
English translation by Fred Lessing
Tania
Giannouli
Tania Giannouli studied piano (Solist Diploma
with honors and 2nd Prize), Advanced Theory and
Composition at Athenaeum Conservatory.
She is mostly interested in mixed-media music so
she composes for theatre, film, video, advertisement
and she is often involved (either as a soloist or a
composer) in projects which combine visuals or text /
speech together with music. Her music for theatre and
film has been performed at many festivals throughout
the world - Greece, Iran, Romania, Bosnia, Ukraine,
Switzerland, Bulgaria, UK, Turkey, Indonesia, Spain,
Lithuania, Morocco, China, Brazil. She has collaborated
with the video artists Istvan Horkay, Roland Quelven,
Isabel Perez del Pulgar.
Improvisation is a big part of her music activity. She
is a founder member of the groups 4+1 and Schema
Ensemble, which performed in the international
electronic music Synch Festival in 2010.
Her concert music has been performed by Dissonart
ensemble and Athens Youth Orchestra.
Tania’s interest in expanding her musical expression
has led her to found the project Emotone together with
the electronic music composer Tomas Weiss. At the
moment she is working in progress in a collaboration
with one of the most important greek writers, Evgenios
Aranitsis.
Her discography as a pianist/composer include so
far: Tori no Kaigi (4+1/ Trente Oiseaux, 2009); Live at
Sfendoni (4+1/ Triple Bath, 2010); 16 days (Archangel
music, 2010) in collaboration with the Sofia’s
Symphonic Orchestra; Feeling of movement (Creative
Space, 2012), together with Spyweirdos; Soundtracks
no. 4 (Ilse, 2012)
PAULO
CHAGAS
Portuguese musician, willfully eclectic in his
field of action, he has directed much of his
career to experimentalism. Being by nature a
maverick, he intensely dedicated his life to the
research of new (or renewed) solutions and
links between the sounds he explores. As Stef
Gijssels said in the famous Free Jazz blog, his
music “results in a very coherent sound: human
and emotional as the result of the improvisation,
fragile and finished because of the editing”.
Working as a composer, multi-instrumentalist
(woodwinds, electronics), teacher, writer and
music promoter, recently he has focused mainly
on two aspects: improving its label Zpoluras
Archives, dedicated to various branches of
contemporary improvised music and working
in partnership with musicians from various
countries; and on the other hand the organization
of MIA – Encontro de Música Improvisada de
Atouguia da Baleia, which is an essential event
in the Portuguese circuit of improvisation.
and in Music Therapy. He then devoted himself to
jazz, having studied in various workshops with great
saxophonists like David Binney and Perico Sambeat.
The basic training of Paulo Chagas is classical,
acquired at the National Conservatory of Lisbon (19801985), where he studied oboe, composition, acoustics
and music history and where he joined the Orchestra
and Chamber Music Group. He also has degrees in
Special Education, in Pedagogy of Music Education
In his youth he founded some folk, pop and rock
bands, starting early to try also the fields of jazz,
fusion and improvised music, practices that he never
left. Simultaneously he has composed, performed
and produced music for theater and film as well
as music for educational purposes. He was part of
several musical projects, from which we highlight:
Colectivo Orgástico (improvised music), Miosótis
(Prog Folk- alternative), Px-Beat (jazz / underground)
and Zappanoia (a Frank Zappa tribute-band).
Currently he plays and records regularly with various
musicians in the field of experimental music, joining
in collectives like P.R.E.C., Ensemble MIA, Ar de
Bop, Variable Geometry Orchestra, Chagas Curado
Viegas Wind Trio, Motim, Potlatch and also in
partnership with Tania Giannoulli, Marcello Magliochi,
Maresuke Okamoto, Matthias Boss, Delphine Dora,
Bruno Duplant, Lee Noyes, Willhelm Mathies,
Troy Schaffer, Carlos Zíngaro, Paulo Curado, João
Pedro Viegas, Abdul Moimeme, Fernando Simões,
Paulo Duarte, Gonçalo Falcão, among others.
Contagious Insanities (A Beard of Snails Records
From his discography we can highlight the following
titles: Mispel Bellyfull (2004); Zpoluras demo
(gds 2005); Miosótis – Risco (gds 2007); PREC –
Chagas, Noyes-As birds (Re:konstrukt 2011); Chagas,
2009); Colectânea MIA 2010; Chagas, Simões, Viegas
e Mira – Quartet Session no1 (Ilse 2011); The Limbo
Ensemble – Plebiscitu (Audiotong 2011); Late Winter
/ Early Spring (Audiotong 2011); Duplant, Chagas &
Noyes - The Bias of the Things (Ilse 2012); Duplant,
Boss & Okamoto – Little Concert in the Garden (ZA
2012); Chagas Curado Viegas Wind Trio – Old School
New School No School (Creative Sources 2012).
Defining himself as a “music addicted”, and taking
the Art as an incessant search for the meaning of
life, Paulo Chagas is keen to experiment, play and
record more and better, doing all that is necessary
for the events that he promotes and the issues that
he releases flourish and spreading ever further.
REVIEW by Nuno Lourenço
Listening to this album is like seeing music
embodied. Some emotions are shown, others
hidden. Complex thoughts and primal (minimal)
instincts are revealed, and as the music morphs
into an organic entity one can perceive its distinct
blueprint. Like someone you know, you can like
this music or not, but you cannot deny its soul.
The haunting piano sets the canvas on which
the wind instruments add colors, sometimes
bright and vivid, other times saturnine and
morose. This music is very visual, like a series
of paintings, and the overall impression is that
of an artistic, maybe surrealistic, self-portrait.
Nuno Lourenço, Proggnosis
Produced by Tania Giannouli & Paulo Chagas
Recorded by Casimiro Loupa & Tania Giannouli
Edited and mixed by Themistoklis Pantelopoulos
& Tania Giannouli
Mastered by Steve Garden
Photography by Andreas
Design by UnkleFranc
All works © Tania Giannouli &
Paulo Chagas (2012)
Tania Giannouli:
www.tania-giannouli.com
Paulo Chagas:
www.paulochagas.weebly.com/
Andreas:
www.redbubble.com/people/andreasphoto
Forest Stories
and wind instruments
RAT-D042 2012
This recording was made with support from
Victoria University of Wellington
www.rattle.co.nz
Improvised music for piano