Dialogues in Marvão

II Colloquium “Dialogues in Marvão”

Landscape and Arts

May 26 at Quinta dos Olhos d’Água Auditorium

 

Gabriela Canavilhas – The ‘alpine virgins’ of nineteenth-century opera, Nature
as locus of purity.
Jaime de Salas OrtuetaLandscape as an intellectual ideal and the effects of the Vanguard.
Luísa Soares OliveiraThe landscape in contemporary painting: between utopia and dystopia.
Nuno Vieira de AlmeidaUnifying elements in Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’.
Rosa SequeiraFire in the myth of Don Juan.
Rui Baldaque RomãoObservations on Hogarth and the landscape.

 

With Dialogues in Marvão another small ‘chapel’ was inaugurated in 2022 in the musical ‘monastery’ that is the International Music Festival in Marvão (FIMM), the artistic event created in 2015 by the conductor Christoph Poppen and the singer Juliane Banse.

In the previous edition, Dialogues in Marvão brought to the stage some debates from Philosophy, Cinema, History, Music and Art Criticism. Now in its second edition to be held on May 26, 2023, Dialogues in Marvão will continue to be an event linked to the sphere of thought and reflection on music and contemporary issues. Landscape and Arts is the the agglutinating theme for which, throughout one day, six personalities from the cultural sphere are invited to share with the public their passion for concepts, theories, varied perspectives, and polemics.

This is an opportunity for six intellectuals from the Portuguese and Spanish cultural panorama – two philosophers, two musicians, a literature specialist, and an art critic – to meet and discuss different perceptions. Near the archeological excavations of Ammaia, this project aims to create a space to deepen observations, experiences and research, bringing the public closer to philosophical, artistic and critical reflection. Being a free admission event, the audience will be able to listen the six speakers of the second edition of Dialogues in Marvão, participating in the final balance.

A few years ago, I remembered to baptize this high altitude Alentejo territory crowned by the emblematic and beautiful town of Marvão as the space of a new “Magic Mountain”, hence the project annually gather six intellectuals in Marvão to dialogue among themselves, in the microcosm of a village huddled on top of a hill, debating problems and ideas, in a lively mosaic of comments, doubts, pathfinding, disagreements, tensions, exchanges of ideas, connections, concordances, and arguments, discussing just like the characters Settembrini, Hans Castorp, Clawdia Chauchat, Peeperkorn, Naphta, and Ziemssen created by Thomas Mann in his famous novel.

Marvão and Serra de São Mamede Natural Park with its diversity, exuberance, and shadows is another Alentejo, the one of the cliffs and escarpments, of the valleys and ravines in a territory crossed by the Sever river, by ancient Roman roads and medieval sidewalks.

In the verses of the poem ‘East Finchley’, Joseph Brodsky reflects on the lives of people who inhabit islands, feeling and knowing that those paradises will not last forever and that the day will come when the fresh water that gushes from the taps will be replaced by salt water. During Dialogues in Marvão, it is of this suspended time that we speak, suspended between fresh water and the imminence of climatic collapse, surrounded by the impregnable walls of the Alentejo town, surrounded by the streams that irrigate Quinta dos Olhos d’Água, and enveloped by the ‘beauty of the fresh mountain range, the shade of the green chestnut trees, and the gentle course of the streams’ of Camonian poetry.

In 1905, Debussy concluded the ‘Dialogues between the wind and the sea’ for the third part of ‘The Sea’, a symphonic and majestic work with a musical succession of storms and calms in which the violent antagonisms between wind and sea foreshadow the catastrophe of a shipwreck. The dialogues here will be of another kind and with other rhythms: they will be understandings and pacts between ideas about music, philosophy, and art criticism, presented in the idyllic setting of the Serra de São Mamede natural park, between the town of Marvão, the villages, the archaeological ruins of the Roman city of Ammaia, and Quinta dos Olhos d’ Água.

Ana Rocha, curator

 

May 26, Friday

10.00 – Jaime Salas Ortueta, Landscape as an intellectual ideal and the effects of the Vanguard.
10.45 – Rui Baldaque Romão, Observations on Hogarth and the landscape.

Coffee break

12.00 – Luísa Soares de Oliveira – The landscape in contemporary painting: between utopia and dystopia.

15.00 – Rosa Maria Sequeira – Fire in the myth of Don Juan.
15.45– Nuno Vieira de Almeida – Unifying elements ‘Winterreise’ by Schubert.

Coffee break

17.00 – Gabriela Canavilhas – The ‘Alpine Virgins’ of the 19th century opera, Nature as locus of purity.
17.30 – Debate among participants and dialogue with the public.
18.30 – Closing.

 

Gabriela Canavilhas

Pianist, teacher and manager Gabriela Canavilhas, who currently presides over the Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Foundation, has been Minister of Culture and deputy to the Portuguese Parliament. Director of music festivals, she has recorded seven albums where are included works by João Domingos Bomtempo and Alfredo Keil, among others.

Jaime de Salas Ortueta

Philosopher Jaime de Salas Ortueta is a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. A specialist in Leibniz and Ortega Y Gasset, some of his publications are entitled ‘Leibniz y la experiencia de la metafisica’, ‘Razón y Experiencia’, ‘Razón y legimitidad, una interpretación desde Ortega’. He chairs at the Xavier de Salas Foundation in Trujillo.

Nuno Vieira de Almeida

Pianist, teacher, broadcaster and recitalist Nuno Vieira de Almeida holds a doctorate in Historical Musicology from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He has recorded albums with works by Fernando Lopes-Graça, Constança Capdeville, and João Madureira, among others. He is a professor at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa.

Luísa Soares de Oliveira

Art Critic Luísa Soares de Oliveira has a degree from Université de Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne and a PhD from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.
Adjunct professor at Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha since 2001, she collaborates regularly with the press and has curated dozens of exhibitions, including the biannual project Landart Cascais. She is a researcher at the Art History Institute.

Rosa Maria Sequeira

Professor Rosa Maria Sequeira has been teaching at Universidade Aberta since 1991 and is currently Associate Professor in the Humanities Department. She has a PhD in Portuguese Studies in the specialty of Theory of Literature, and her monographs are entitled Desejo e Sedução (Desire and Seduction), A Imagem da cidade na poesia moderna: Cesário Verde e Fernando Pessoa, and O Poder e o Desejo: o Ensino da Literatura a Estrangeiros na Universidade.

Rui Bertrand Baldaque Romão

The philosopher Rui Bertrand Baldaque Romão is an associate professor at Faculdade de Letras of the University of Porto. His research focuses on skepticism, modern and contemporary philosophies, political philosophy and aesthetics. His publications include ‘A Apologia na Balança’ and ‘Quid? Studies on Francisco Sanches’, ‘Montaigne and Modernity’.

Ana Rocha

Born in Mozambique in 1957. Writer, researcher, lecturer, curator of the cycle of conferences  ‘Dialogues in Marvão’, critic in the weekly newspaper ‘Expresso’, collaborator of the magazine ‘Electra’, journalist in the afternoon newspaper ‘A Capital’, teacher, author of programs and textbooks for the 12th grade, translator, radio columnist, organizer of classical music concerts in Évora. She graduated in Philosophy at the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa.
She obtained a Master’s degree in Philosophy with a thesis entitled ‘The intertwining of politics and ideology in David Hume’s History of England’. The world premiere of her first play entitled The Origin of the World is announced for Geneva, in the program of Studio Théâtre with direction by Alexandre Paita. In 2023, the premiere of Antero Q, her second play, is announced for Lisbon with Carlos Pessoa directing, and that production will be presented in São Paulo, Vila do Conde, and Geneva. Under the title A Arte da Fuga, she is preparing her new book on Wagner.