The Chairs of Tàpies. Hugo Gómez-Chao Porta

The Chairs of Tàpies is a series of multidisciplinary sound actions organised in the context of the Tàpies Centenary Year, with the collaboration of Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). The proposal focuses on the voice and words to create a sound accompaniment to oral memory. In this way, each of the thirteen sessions will feature a creator whose starting point will be the chair, taken as a performative object, linking back to the creative universe of Tàpies through the expressive languages and settings of the present day.

The guest in the ninth Chair of Tàpies is Hugo Gómez-Chao, who is to present the proposition entitled Three Voices. Three voices try to speak in the darkness. Three voices try to remember a text, the words, the inflections of their own voice. They try to learn to speak again through fragments of phrases, words, whispers, but any trace of communication has been lost in this superimposition of air over nothing. Suddenly, some signs appear that connect it all: en echo, a flash of meaning, a gesture that makes the three voices sing at the same time, a pure word. And suddenly what can be heard becomes visible.

Based on texts by Antoni Tàpies, Leonardo da Vinci and Ángel Valente, Three voices explores the physicality of the human voice to create a choreography that can only exist in the ear. This event also features the sopranos Margarita Rodríguez and Adriana Aranda and the mezzosoprano Cristina Segura, as well as percussionists Noè Rodrigo and Sabela Castro.

Hugo Gómez-Chao Porta

Born in A Coruña, he studied composition with Beat Furrer at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, and with Ramón Lazkano at Musikene in Donostia/Sant Sebastián. In addition to his academic training, he has attended classes with composers like Toshio Hosokawa, Alberto Posadas, Clemens Gadenstätter, Bernhard Lang, Mark Andre and Pierluigi Billone.

He has been resident composer at the Real Academia de España in Rome (2022–2023) and resident composer at Juventudes Musicales de España (2019), scholarship holder in Artistic Training from A Coruña provincial authority and REGA resident artist at the City of Culture of Santiago de Compostela. He has won accolades including the first prize for young composers from the SGAE-CNDM Xavier Montsalvatge foundation and special commendation from the Colegio de España in Paris.

He has received commissions and premiered work with the support of bodies including JONDE (Joven Orquesta Nacional de España), the AEOS foundation, the SGAE foundation, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Juventudes Musicales de España, Impuls Festival, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, the Contrasti de Florència series, Festival Ensems in Valencia, the sacred music festival in Madrid, La Phármaco dance company, the City of Culture of Santiago de Compostela and Museu Tàpies, among others.

His music has been performed in Italy, Austria, Germany and France, among other countries, by leading ensembles and artists such as Quartet Arditti, Klangforum Wien, IEMA Ensemble Modern, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, mdi ensemble, Arxis Ensemble, Vertixe Sonora Ensemble, Grup Instrumental Segle XX, Jove Orquestra de la Generalitat Valenciana and Ensemble So Extrem, among others.

In 2018 he founded the RESIS international contemporary music festival in A Coruña (with the support of INAEM, A Coruña city council, A Coruña provincial authority and the government of Galicia), of which he is artistic director. He is also artistic director of the Associación Cultural Aïs, with projects like the A_NEXOS series at the Luis Seoane foundation. In 2022 he founded Arxis Ensemble, of which he is also artistic director. Since 2023 he has curated the Andrés Gaos award and been musical adviser to the culture department of A Coruña provincial authority.

Margarita Rodríguez

Born in Mallorca, she has worked with eminent international conductors like William Christie, Masaaki Suzuki and Kent Nagano. In the contemporary music repertoire, she made her début as L’Angelo in Il giardino della vita, by José María Sánchez-Verdú, conducted by Arturo Tamayo. Since then she has premiered and performed compositions by leading contemporary composers, including Aleph, by Iluminada Pérez-Frutos; KELAIA (Libro de los vientos), by José María Sánchez-Verdú; Lo grotesco, by Sergio Blardony; Marii, by Ward De Vleeschhouwer; Resonancias sobre la Folía de España, by Alicia Díaz de la Fuente, and Intérieur, by Hugo Gómez-Chao, and is now a regular figure at the top contemporary series and festivals.

Adriana Aranda

Born in Barcelona, she studied classical and contemporary singing at the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu and then the master’s course in Lied at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya, specialising in contemporary music. She has won scholarships from the Fundació Victòria dels Àngels and also from Wolfram Rieger on the International Course for the Interpretation of Lied with Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya. In the field of contemporary music, she was a member of the Académie Voix Nouvelles in Royaumont (France) in 2019. She has worked with different contemporary music ensembles including the CrossingLines Ensemble at the OUT·SIDE’20 FESTIVAL, Grup Instrumental Segle XX at the Festival RESIS 2021, Vertixe Sonora since 2021 and Arxis Ensemble at the Royal Spanish Academy in Rome in 2023. In September 2023 she played Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg at the Música als Masos festival.

Born in Barcelona, ​​she studied singing with Dolors Aldea (a disciple of Gérard Souzay) and Francisco Poyato, as well as with Wolfram Rieger, Dalton Baldwin, Ulrich Eisenlohr, Burkhard Kehring, and Donatienne Michel-Dansac (currently the main European vocal reference in contemporary music). She received a scholarship from the Fundació Victoria de los Ángeles and twice from Wolfram Rieger in the Curs Internacional de Lied de Joventuts Musicals de Catalunya. In the field of Lied, she has performed in different venues in Spain, highlighting the LIFE Victoria Festival with Ian Burnside and Roderick Williams. She has taken part in different national and international multidisciplinary new creation projects with dance, theatre and circus in festivals both in Spain and France. He has worked with the main national contemporary music ensembles, such as Vertixe Sonora, Arxis Ensemble or CrossingLines, among others, appearing in festivals such as RESIS Festival, OUT•SIDE or the Festival de los Castillos and has premiered as a soloist three consecutive operas at the Gran Teatre del Liceu by Fabià Santcovsky, Itziar Viloria with Álex Tentor and Jordi Oriol and the most recent one by Guillem Palomar.

Cristina Segura

After graduating from the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu under Maria Dolors Aldea, she did two master’s degrees at the Haute école de musique in Geneva with Nathalie Stutzmann, followed by further training in lied at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. She stands out for her extensive training and work both in opera and lied, early and contemporary music and oratorios. She has sung as a soloist in Switzerland, Slovenia, France, Belgium, Brazil and Spain. She has sung the parts of Carmen (Carmen) and Suzuki (Madama Butterfly) at the Palau de la Música Catalana. At the Opéra de Lausanne she has played the parts of Smeton (Anna Bolena), Teresa (La sonnambula), Alisa (Lucia di Lammermoor), L’autruche (Les Zoocrates) and Pepa (La Belle de Cadix), as well as La maman, La tasse and La libellule (L’enfant et les sortilèges).