Projects

a. Main Commissioned Works

Clarinet Quintet

Buffet Crampon Summer Clarinet Academy, USA.

Premiere: 2024, Jacksonville, U.S.A;

Requiem in Memory of Francisco Sá Carneiro

Pedro Neves, conductor; Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra.

Premiere: 2025, Porto and Lisbon, Portugal;

Work inspired by 10 poetic texts by female, male and juvenile prisoners

Premiere: 2025, Portuguese prisons;

Concerto for clarinet and orchestra

Cristian Maçelaru, conductor; Carlos Ferreira, clarinet.

Cabrillo Festival, International Festival of Contemporary Music.

Premiere: 2026, Los Angeles, USA.

b. Main Recent Premieres

Song "To the memory of an angel"

Helena Ressurreição, mezzo-soprano; Pedro Emanuel Pereira, piano.

Premiere: October 2023, at the "Sona Mollet" Festival, Barcelona, Spain;

Quintet "Fado do Vento", for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon and piano

Tiago Coimbra, oboe; Horácio Ferreira, clarinet; Flávio Barbosa, horn; Virgílio Oliveira, bassoon; Pedro Emanuel Pereira, piano.

Premiere: September 2023, Concert in Honour of Samuel Bastos, Barcelos, Portugal;

Suite "Duas Igrejas", for clarinet and piano

Carlos Ferreira, clarinet; Pedro Emanuel Pereira, piano.

US premiere: July 2023, Clarinet International Festival, Denver.

World Premiere: October 2021, Portuguese Embassy in Paris, France;

“Ar de Mar", seven pictures for violin and piano

Eliot Lawson, violin; Pedro Emanuel Pereira, piano.

Premiere: November 2022, Q.Art Festival, Amstelkerk in Amsterdam, Netherlands;

41 " The Death", for soprano and string quartet

Sara Braga Simões, soprano; AVA Quintet.

Premiere: July 2022, Póvoa de Varzim International Music Festival, Portugal;

"Passarola" for piano, electronics and sacred geometry

Pedro Emanuel Pereira, piano; Vítor Joaquim, electronics; Rui Gato, sacred geometry.

Premiere: May 2022, XV COTEC Europe Meeting, Theatro Circo in Braga, Portugal. Attended by the heads of state of Portugal, Spain and Italy.

c. Main Recent Performances

Opening concert of Casa da Música do Porto's 2024-25 season. Concert No. 5 by S. Prokofiev, with the Casa da Música Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stefan Blunier;
Concert to commemorate the centenary of the birth of Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos, Lisbon. With Eliot Lawson, violin;
Recital at the Q.Art Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands;
Recital for four pianos, Lagos, Portugal. With Lukas Geniusas, Rem Urasin and Alexey Kurbatov;
Recital at the Sona Mollet Festival in Barcelona, Spain. With Helena Ressurreição, mezzo soprano, and Ana Mar, violin;
Concert by the "Passarola" project, as part of the inauguration of the European Music Centre in Portugal. Held in the Library of the National Convent of Mafra, with Rui Gato (sacred geometry) and Vítor Joaquim (electronics);
Presentation of the "Sounds of April" project in Guimarães, Valença and Penafiel. With António Victorino d'Almeida and Miguel Leite (historical and musicological comments);
Recital for Radio Antena 2, with Carlos Ferreira, clarinet.

d. “Rising Star" Tour, with clarinetist Carlos Ferreira

(Piano and Clarinet)

"Art aims to reflect not only beauty, but also the entire human condition."

Carlos Ferreira

In collaboration with Carlos Ferreira, principal clarinetist of the French National Orchestra, Pedro Emanuel Pereira will tour major European concert halls as part of the Rising Star programme. With more than 20 concerts scheduled, the musicians will perform in renowned concert halls such as:

- Auditorium - Orchestre National de Lyon;

- Barbican Centre - London;

- B:Music - Town Hall & Symphony Hall Birmingham;

- Bozar - Centre for Fine Arts Brussels;

- Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation - Lisbon;

- Casa da Música - Porto;

- Cité de la Musique - Philharmonie de Paris;

- Elbphilharmonie and Laiszhalle - Hamburg;

- Festspielhaus Baden-Baden;

- Harpa - Reykjavik;

- Het Concertgebouw - Amsterdam;

- Kölner Philharmonie - Cologne;

- Konserthuset Stockholm;

- Konzerthaus Dortmund;

- L'Auditori - Barcelona;

- Megaron - Athens Concert Hall;

- Müpa Budapest;

- Musikverein Wien - Vienna;

- NOSPR Katowice;

- Palau de la Música Catalana - Barcelona;

- Luxembourg Philharmonie;

- Sage Gateshead;

- Wiener Konzerthaus - Vienna.

Since its beginning in 1995/96, the ECHO Rising Stars programme has been a support for more than 150 exceptional artists. Recent seasons have included Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Jörg Widmann, Janine Jansen, Igor Levit, Khatia Buniatishvili, Renaud Capuçon, Quatuor Modigliani, Belcea Quartet and Cuarteto Casals.

On this tour, the musicians will perform works from their most recent album "XX-XXI", as well as works by French and German composers from the Romantic period. All the concerts on the tour will conclude with the Suite "Duas Igrejas", a work composed by Pedro Emanuel Pereira and dedicated to Carlos Ferreira.

e. “50'25 - Through the Prisons of Portugal”

(Commented concert - exhibition)

"The centrepiece of this series of concerts is to bring the Great Portuguese Music of the 21st Century into contact with an audience that may not be very familiar with this type of cultural manifestation, of true High Culture, of the Culture of a People that fought and liberated itself, an action in which music played a fundamental role."

Miguel Leite

With the support of the Mission Structure of the Commission for the Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of 25 April, the Directorate-General for Reintegration and Prison Services and the Directorate-General for the Arts, this project consists of an original artistic intervention that will be taken to ten prisons in Portugal throughout 2025. It covers various regions of mainland and island Portugal, the male and female inmate population of the most diverse age groups, including the youngest in the Education Centres.

This project will feature Pedro Emanuel Pereira at the piano and in musical creation/composition, who will be accompanied at each concert by a guest musician and Miguel Leite, who will contribute with historical and musicological comments. "50'25 - Through the Prisons of Portugal" - will feature the creation of an artist's book by multidisciplinary artist Ana Mar. This book will include photographic content by the artist, original creative texts written by the inmates, as well as a QR code that will link to an audio recording of 10 original musical works by Pedro Emanuel Pereira, inspired by the inmates' creative texts.

Symbolically, this cycle of concerts will begin in Lisbon's Caxias Prison - where many political prisoners of the old regime were held - and will end in Guimarães Prison, the birthplace of pianist and composer Pedro Emanuel Pereira.

After the end of the tour in prisons, this project includes the exhibition of the photographic documentary of the project through the lens of the artist Ana Mar, who will capture unique moments throughout the 10 concerts.

f. “Where the Earth Ends”

(Solo Piano Recital)

"All music and all art must somehow touch people's hearts, because that's where music and art come from: from the fatum, the thought and the feeling of each creative figure."

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

After "Russian Journey", an album entirely dedicated to works by Prokofiev and Rachmaninov, and " Sounds of My Homeland", an album that reflects the sounds of the pianist's homeland, Pedro Emanuel Pereira presents a new solo piano project.

Recorded in 2022 at the Casa da Música in Porto, and mastered in spatial audio, "Aonde a Terra Acaba" aims to create a link between Portuguese contemporary music and German European music.

For this recital programme, which stems from the homonymous work "Aonde a Terra Acaba" by Pedro Emanuel Pereira, the artist incorporates works by four contemporary Portuguese composers, who are celebrating their jubilee in 2025, correlating them with the music of German authors from the romantic period.

The record album "Aonde a Terra Acaba" was supported by DGARTES - Portuguese Republic.

PROGRAMME

Part 1

Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)

Intermezzo no. 1 in B minor, op. 119
Sonata no. 2 in F sharp minor, op. 2

I. Allegro non troppo, ma energico

II. Andante con espressione

III. Scherzo: Allegro - Poco più moderato

IV. Finale: Sostenuto - Allegro non troppo e rubato - Molto sostenuto

Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)

Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S. 171

Part 2

Mário Laginha (1960 - )

Song and Fugue

"Lugar Bem Situado" and Fugue in D Major

António Victorino d'Almeida (1940 - )

Prelude and Fugue in B minor op. 23

Fernando Lapa (1950 - )

Variations on the theme from José Afonso's "Coro da Primavera" (Spring Choir)

Pedro Emanuel Pereira (1990 - )

Suite "Aonde a Terra Acaba" op. 11

Praeludium

Interludium - "Mourning Angel"

Cantionis - "Indo Eu"

Postludium - "Malhão"

g. “Sounds of April”

(Solo Piano Recital)

"This is the dawn I've been waiting for

The first full, clear day

Where we emerge from night and silence

And free we inhabit the substance of time."

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

During the period of Salazarism, the so-called "Intervention Music" or "Protest Song" blossomed in Portugal, as it did in many other countries. It was through this form of artistic expression that creators such as José Afonso, Adriano Correia de Oliveira, José Mário Branco and Lopes Graça gave voice to their discontent.

As a tribute to the artists who bravely spoke out against Salazar's oppressive regime through protest songs, Pedro Emanuel Pereira has designed a solo piano project that aims to honour all those who risked their lives through song.

The programme for this project - which has already been presented in cities such as Rome, Amsterdam, Guimarães, Penafiel, Valença, and in online format - includes works by composers who were inspired by the theme of freedom in correlation with Portuguese intervention music.

PROGRAMME

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

Little Sounds of April, op.2 (2019)

Fernando Lapa

Variations on José Afonso's "Coro da Primavera" - from an arrangement by José Mário Branco (2000)

Frederic Rzewski

Sons of Insurrection - N. 5: "Grândula" (2016)

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

Sounds of April - Improvisation on themes by José Afonso (2018)

NOTE: This concert may include historical and musicological commentary by António Victorino d'Almeida and Miguel Leite

h. "Day & Night", with mezzo-soprano Helena Ressurreição

(Piano and Voice)

"What a slow awakening

What a sad dawn

The light is slow to come

To fortune foretold."

Paulo César Gonçalves

In a perfect symbiosis between words and sound, Day & Night is human experience in all its fullness.

Together with mezzo-soprano Helena Ressurreição, the musicians reflect - in a concert for voice and piano - the depth of the human being through his drama, his joy and his fado.

Composer Pedro Emanuel Pereira wrote his first songs when he was just eight years old. Five years later, he premiered his work " Four Songs for Piano" at the D. Maria II Theatre in Lisbon, in a live concert for Antena 2 radio.

More recently, in 2019, the artist returned to this musical genre, having written a total of 11 songs. With texts by Lusophone poets, the composer was inspired by the Portuguese language to reflect the innermost spirit of his art through the human voice.

PROGRAMME

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

Two songs for voice and piano with text by Fernando Pessoa, op. 4;
Four songs for voice and piano with text by Paulo César Gonçalves, op. 6;
"Saudade is a bit like hunger", with text by Clarice Linspector, op. 8;
Three songs for voice and piano with texts by Lusophone poets (L. V. Camões, M. Torga, S. M. Breyner), op. 9;
To the memory of an angel, with text by Pedro Emanuel Pereira, op.16.

i. Passarola | Variations on the Past and the Future K.87

(Piano, Electronics and Sacred Geometry)

"When the machine flies, the whole sky will be music."

José Saramago

The work "Passarola | Variations on the Past and the Future K.87" is the first research and cultural creation project that is part of Via Scarlatti - one of the European Music Centre's programmes.

With Pedro Emanuel Pereira on piano and composition, Vítor Joaquim on electronics, and Rui Gato on sacred geometry, this project emerges after a sensory and analytical dive into Scarlatti's Sonata in B minor K.87 - composed in Portugal in the 18th century - and the literary work "Memorial do Convento" by José Saramago.

This piece - which was attended by three heads of state at its premiere at the Theatro Circo in Braga - emerges from the dialogue between the classical piano, software and hardware, interacting with the past, innovating and transforming itself for the future.

PROGRAMME

Passarola | Variations on the Past and the Future K.87

Pedro Emanuel Pereira, piano e composição

Rui Gato, geometria sagrada

Vítor Joaquim, eletrónica

j. MIR

(Piano, Voice and String Quartet)

In many Slavic languages, the word "mir" has a double meaning: "peace" and "world".

In Ukrainian, this word means "peace", while in Russian it has the double meaning of "peace" and "world".

"It was on 24 February 2022 that Russia invaded Ukraine.

I spent two nights in a row sleeping badly. It was almost seven years living in Moscow, where I made many Russian and Ukrainian friends. Today, some of them are in Ukraine fighting for their land, their culture and their right to exist. In the same way, many Russian friends have felt the need to leave their country because their freedom has been restricted in a brutally atrocious and unprecedented way.

Two years on from the start of the war, the knot in my chest has not gone away; on the contrary, it has sunk deep into my gut.

This hideous event has conditioned my creative writing to such an extent that several musical works have been born inspired by this terrible war.

These works excogitate the anguish and pain of loss, in a reflection that aims to valorise the meaning of life and its ephemerality."

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

PROGRAMME

Gustav Mahler

Quartet for piano and strings in A minor

Alfred Schnittke

Quartet for piano and strings (in continuation of Mahler's quartet)

Valentin Silvestrov

Quintet for piano and strings

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

"Maidan", Quintet for piano and strings, op. 15 a
41 " The Death" - Quintet for soprano and string quartet op. 14
"Mir", for mezzo-soprano, piano and string quartet op. 13 b

Notes: Of the work "Maidan" op. 15 a, there is a second version for symphony orchestra; The work "Mir" was originally written for six-voice choir, this being a version of the first; The work 41 "A Morte" won the grand prize for composition at the FIMPV in Portugal in 2022.

j. Ar de Mar

(Piano and Violin - Exhibition)

"The sea is the religion of nature."

Fernando Pessoa

"Ar de Mar" is a multidisciplinary project involving composition, painting and photography. Inspired by the homonymous work "Ar de Mar" - seven pictures for violin and piano - written in 2021 by Pedro Emanuel Pereira during the period in which he suffered from Covid-19, this project reflects the relationship between Man and the Sea, with Nature, and with Creation.

Dedicated to the multidisciplinary artist Ana Mar - his wife - this musical work, when played in public, is preceded by a photographic and painting exhibition by the artist Ana Mar, which reflects the theme of the Sea, Nature and Creation in correlation with Man.

Premiered in March 2023 in Amsterdam, with violinist Elliot Lawson and Pedro Emanuel Pereira on the piano; and in October 2023 in Barcelona, with Ana Mar on the violin, this project includes works by other authors that directly or indirectly reflect the aforementioned theme.

k. Sons da Minha Terra

(Recital for solo piano)

"O salty sea, how much of your salt are the tears of Portugal!"

Fernando Pessoa

After "Russian Journey", an album entirely dedicated to works by Russian composers, Pedro Emanuel Pereira marked a return to his origins with " Sounds of My Homeland", an album for solo piano that includes exclusively original works by the artist. Revealing a different way of composing, along with constant improvisation, " Sounds of My Homeland" reveals the sounds of the pianist's native land, praising the noble Portuguese soul.

This project, for solo piano, includes exclusively Portuguese music for solo piano, featuring works by the author and other contemporary Portuguese composers.

PROGRAMME

Eurico Tomás de Lima

Barcarolle (1933)

(Arranged by Pedro Emanuel Pereira)

Suite " Paradise Island" (1967)

Fernando Lopes-Graça

Sonata n. 6 (1981)

António Victorino d'Almeida

Two preludes and fugues op. 25 (1974)

(Work dedicated to and premiered by Pedro Emanuel Pereira)

Mário Laginha

Song and Fugue

"Lugar Bem Situado" and Fugue in D Major

Fernando Lapa

Variations on the theme from José Afonso's "Coro da Primavera" (Spring Choir)

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

Suite "Aonde a Terra Acaba" op. 11

Praeludium

Interludium - "Mourning Angel"

Cantionis - "Indo Eu"

Postludium - "Malhão"

l. Delving Into the Between

(piano, multipercussion and electronics)

"Silence is not the absence of sound, but the presence of infinite potentiality."

John Cage

"In the summer of 2019, I had an epiphanic experience that led me to reflect on the importance of silence in my life, realising that silence doesn't just occur when there is no noise: silence is itself a presence.

Through this personal experience, I was able to see that the timelessness of silence is closely linked to its spatiality and temporality. By changing my perception of Silence, Space and Time, as well as the relationship between these three, my artistic creation underwent significant changes.

This experience resulted in a piece of academic research on the theme of Silence - in the doctoral programme in Artistic Creation at the University of Aveiro - and in a musical and conceptual project that incorporates instrumental music and electronics, using audio spatialisation (dolby atmos).

This musical work, inspired by "ma" - a Japanese aesthetic and philosophical concept - and the metaphysicality of sound, aims to provide a unique sound experience: immersive, profound and spatially engaging."

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

PROGRAMME

Pedro Emanuel Pereira

"Silence" for piano, multipercussion and electronics (2024 - 2025)

m. In Media Res

(Actor, violin, mezzo-soprano, trumpet, Portuguese guitar, piano, double bass)

Project commemorating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís Vaz de Camões

"Love...

It's wanting to be bound by will;

It's serving the one who wins, the winner;

Loyalty to those who kill us."

Luís Vaz de Camões

The performance "In Media Res", a theatre-musical by composer Pedro Emanuel Pereira, with text and script by Paulo César Gonçalves, aims to evoke the figure of Camões on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his birth. By tracing a destiny that is not dissociated from his work, and using a musical language that includes singing and dialogue, a timeless narrative is presented, just like the figure portrayed, which goes through places, events and figures, some more obvious than others, in an action that is sewn and unsewn as many times as necessary.

"In Media Res", as the name suggests, starts from a reality that combines erudition and contemporaneity, fact with fiction, or, as Padre António Vieira put it, "not to tell things as they were, but to paint them as they should be or as they ought to be." Camões re-imagined, untied from the canon: freedman, libertine, poet, soldier, beloved, lover, intrepid, insolent, urban, human and humanist. Greater than many lives.