ΞllllllΞ
PEDRO MELO ALVES
Access:
Ticket: 7,50€
Young people up to the age of 18, students and people over: 3,75€
Amigos de Serralves: 3,75€
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ΞllllllΞ [pronounced “imm”] is a transdisciplinary sensory narrative by composer Pedro Melo Alves, at the intersection of music, techno-performance, and digital arts. Exploring the shared connections between classical culture, mainstream pop, urban movements, and their ancestral roots, ΞllllllΞ presents itself as an open stage for contemporary ontological discussion and transhumanist and posthumanist inquiry.
Four musicians, a team of multimedia artists, and a performer occupy the centre of the space. How well do we know ourselves? Where are we heading? The audience is invited to inhabit a 360º immersive environment — a living organism in which sensors and an interactive platform translate their gestures, memories, and opinions into an exploration of the human condition. The music is rooted in the urgency of pop movements and urban beats, intersecting with the languages of contemporary music, jazz, and experimental electronics. An original body of digital artwork and a reactive multimedia structure of video, light, and sound drive the narrative through the hybrid languages and real-time processes of post-internet culture. What is the primordial human impulse to transcend our limits made of?
With each presentation, ΞllllllΞ collaborates with a new performer and engages with a new community, feeding into an ongoing compositional process that transcends the stage and takes shape on the ΞllllllΞ:MATER platform. Bringing together critical thinking and audiovisual creation, physical and virtual formats, the project expands through a cycle of art exhibitions, a digital platform, a record label, and a programme of debates.An international team of 18 artists and programmers specialised in the research of new artistic practices was brought together for its creation. The project also features the participation of renowned guest performers, such as Vera Mantero, and a network of partnerships with institutions including the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, MAAT — Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Carpintarias de São Lázaro, the Iminente Urban Arts Festival, ZABRA — Posthuman Art Research Center, LuxFrágil, Lovers & Lollypops, and GrETUA — Experimental Theatre Group.
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Pedro Melo Alves is one of the most prominent drummers and composers on Portugal’s avant-garde music scene in recent years. An explorer of the expanded possibilities of percussion, improviser, composer for both small and large ensembles, and curator, his work is characterised by an exploratory attitude and an ambitious crossing of aesthetic territories, ranging from jazz and classical music to electronic and experimental music. His work has received several distinctions, including the Bernardo Sassetti Composition Prize, El Intruso Revelation Band 2021, and the Premio Internazionale Giorgio Gaslini. He has collaborated with international artists across the fields of music, performance, and cinema, including Tony Malaby, Sun Ra Arkestra, Ingrid Laubrock, Peter Evans, Leo Genovese, Camila Nebbia, Eve Risser, Susana Santos Silva, Mark Dresser, Sara Serpa, Jim Black, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, Hery Paz, Joe Morris, Meg Stuart, Vera Mantero, Peter Kleinert, and Gaya de Medeiros. Over the years, he has performed at venues and festivals including The Public Theater (USA), Suoni Per Il Popolo (Canada), Funarte (Brazil), jazzahead! (Germany), the European Jazz Conference (Portugal), Europavox (France), Le Botanique (Belgium), Bimhuis (Netherlands), Porgy & Bess (Austria), Budapest Music Centre (Hungary), RoteFabrik (Switzerland), Dampfzentrale (Switzerland), Saalfelden Jazz Festival (Austria), Ljubljana Jazz Festival (Slovenia), Belgrade Jazz Festival (Serbia), 12 Points Festival (Ireland), Südtirol Jazz Festival (Italy), Primavera Sound (Portugal), Paredes de Coura (Portugal), Alkantara (Portugal), and Jazz em Agosto (Portugal). Born in Porto in 1991, Pedro Melo Alves studied Jazz Drums at ESMAE, Porto (2011), Jazz and Classical Piano at ESTAL, Lisbon (2014), and Musical Composition at ESML, Lisbon (2015). Currently a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Pedro leads and composes for projects including his Omniae Large Ensemble, the multimedia project ΞllllllΞ:MATER, The Rite of Trio, and In Igma. He was an artist-in-residence at Galeria Zé dos Bois with the improvisation series Conundrum. He performs in percussion duos with João Pais Filipe and Pedro Carneiro, and is a member of several international projects, including HIIT, the Luís Vicente Trio, and Alma Tree with Ra Kalam Bob Moses and Vasco Trilla, as well as indie bands such as Surma and Memória de Peixe. Alongside these projects, Pedro composes for theatre, dance, and film, receives commissions for classical music, and curates music programmes at Água Ardente in Lisbon.