Fernando Mota

Concerto para uma árvore [Concert for a Tree] marks the beginning of research into sound objects and experimental musical instruments created from trees and other natural materials. The instrument Hárvore was created from an oak cut during a land clearing in the Serra de Montemuro in February 2020. During the quarantine this small tree was slowly transformed into a musical instrument, with strings stretched between its branches and bells in place. of flowers. It is played with hands, chopsticks, violin bow, powerball, slide, stones and logs. This and other instruments of this research, such as Ramira and Birdcage, are part of a concert that is the first stop on a path that is expected to be long and that will encompass other ramifications such as communication systems and symbiosis between plants and trees and research poetics about old age and memory. 


Fernando Mota is a multidisciplinary musician, composer and artist. Since 2000 he has been developing a multidisciplinary and universal scenic language, in creations such as MAPA (estórias de mundos distantes), PHOTOMATON, PEIXE LUA and QUANDO O HOMEM LAVRAVA O MAR. His musical universe results from the crossing of different languages, geographies and tools, such as the study of traditional Portuguese instruments and other cultures, the construction of experimental instruments and sound objects, the use of elements from nature and everyday sounds in his compositions and sound manipulation and experimentation through information technology and electroacoustics.