Victor Gama’s Ocea Mundo

Gama premieres at The National Sawdust a new solo work for acrux and toha, two contemporary musical instruments from his Pangeia Instrumentos series. Both instruments originate from the use of a composition method where concept, design, the construction of the instruments and scoring share the same relevance in the writing process. His instrument, Toha, for instance, was inspired by the nest of the sociable weaver birds in the Namibe and Kalahari deserts. The harp-like instrument is meant to be played by two people, just like the birds who would make a home in the nest.

In Ocea Mundo, Gama travels to the oceanic planet Eguanalam to narrate an encounter between humans migrating across the galaxy and an alien life form that may or may not be human, or even alive. Plunging listeners into dreamlike landscapes of volatile proliferation: shape-shifting beings, incarnate weather, carnal jet-streams, and waters churning with undercurrents of violence, passion, pain and love, Gama draws on science fiction to tell the timeless story of the travel, conquest and colonialism. The acrux is a direct descendant from Ocea Mundo, as both story and instrument developed over a period of nearly twenty years. Of Victor Gama’s music the Gardian’s critic John Walkers wrote ‘In performance, Gama’s meditative solo pieces for the metallic acrux evoked both the Balinese gamelan and Cage’s prepared piano, while his studies for the gleaming toha had the sophisticated simplicity of Howard Skempton or Ludovico Einaudi’. Audience members will be invited on stage to play the last piece.

Victor Gama (Angola/Portugal) is a composer whose process begins with the creation of an entirely new instrument, one whose design is steeped in symbolic meaning. Concept design, the selection of materials, fabrication, and scoring are equal partners in Gama’s writing method, blending current digital fabrication technologies with ideas and traditions inspired by the natural world. He holds a BSc in electronics engineering and an MA in Music Technology from the Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design in London. Gama has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet who premiered his piece ‘Rio Cunene’ at Carnegie Hall in March 2010. ‘Rio Cubango’, commissioned by the Prince Claus Fund and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts premiered in 2011 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Vela 6911 was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Music Now and premiered at Harris Theater in Chicago. His recent piece ‘3 thousand RIVERS’, a multimedia opera, premiered in Lisbon in 2016 commissioned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. His new piece ‘Aisa Tanaf: The book of winds and oceans’ premieres in 2017 at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC as part of Mason Bates KC Jukebox. Gama has been a resident artist at MIT and at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). He has exhibited his instruments and sound installations and performed extensively in Africa, Latin America, USA and Europe. His album Pangeia Instrumentos was released by Aphex Twin on Rephlex Records. Naloga and Quatro Momentos were recently on PangeiArt. He initiated and currently produces ‘Tsikaya – Músicos do Interior’, the first digital platform for musicians in the rural areas of Angola.