CANTARES, FOR STRING TRIO

Andreia Pinto Correia (b. Lisbon, Portugal, in 1971)

Composed 2025; 18 minutes

Andrea Pinto Correia is a Portuguese-born composer whose music has been described as “compellingly meditative” and richly colored in timbre and harmony. Drawing on literary sources from Iberia and beyond, her work has been commissioned by leading orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic. Major honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Portugal’s Ministry of Culture. She now lives and works in Brooklyn.

“Cantares are Portuguese folk chants, and this work is a collection of imaginary cantares,” Andreia Pinto Correia writes. “The idea for this composition arose from research by my mother – a scholar and professor of German Literature at the University of Lisbon – on the writings of Carolina Michaëlis (1851-1925). Michaëlis, a German-Portuguese scholar was a prominent figure in Portugal and the first woman professor at a Portuguese University, whose works on popular traditions include Estudos sobre o romanceiro peninsular: romances velhos em Portugal (‘Studies regarding the Peninsular romancero: old romances in Portugal’). Michaëlis’ work was also relevant to the studies of my father – a medievalist and the director of the Center for Oral Traditions at the University of Lisbon. So, Carolina Michaëlis represents a shared passion that infuses the life’s work of both my parents.

“The musical composition is comprised of five movements played without pause, each featuring a distinct type of chant/wailing. The two outer movements (I and V) feature the trio as a unit, while the middle movements feature each soloist in counterpoint with the others. Movement II features violinist Stella Chen, movement III features violist Matthew Lipman, and movement IV features cellist Brannon Cho. The musical material rotates – what is background in one movement becomes foreground in the next – while musical gestures expand and contract.”