University of York Music Press

Portuguese composer and 2024 Pessoa Prize winner Luís Tinoco's double album Kokyuu has been awarded five stars by Expresso, with critic Rui Miguel Abreu describing it as "a gesture of humanity in a time when deep listening seems like a practice at risk of extinction."

The album brings together five concertos for different soloists and orchestra, written between 2019 and 2024. Tinoco describes the collection as "five reflections on how to deal with the relationship between soloist and orchestra, seeking different expressive and narrative solutions in each case."

Speaking to Expresso, Tinoco explained his compositional philosophy: "I try to make my music a counterpoint to the noise and cacophony that surrounds us. It is music that seeks balance, breath, instead of suffocation, and a light that, instead of dazzling, transmits some serenity."

The title work, Kokyuu, was written during the pandemic with the central metaphor of breath—exploring how breathing became a risk in itself. Premiered with alto saxophonist Ricardo Toscano, the piece begins with the soloist emitting sounds of air and gradually building melodic lines in what Tinoco describes as "a struggle for control of the breath, until relaxation and balance arrive."

Other works on the album include Canções de Trabalho (Work Songs) for soprano Lívia Nestrovski, which revisits traditional melodies from Portugal, Cape Verde, and Brazil, premiered at UNESCO on World Portuguese Language Day. The album also features a cello concerto for Filipe Quaresma, an accordion concerto for João Barradas, and Entre Silêncios (Between Silences), a spatially-conceived clarinet concerto that Tinoco describes as "a choreography of sound."

The album is performed by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra under Pedro Neves and the Porto Casa da Música Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joana Carneiro and Bastien Stil. Tinoco has dedicated the album to António Jorge Pacheco, former programmer of Casa da Música and "tireless promoter of the music of our time."

In the interview, Tinoco addressed accusations of elitism often levelled at contemporary classical music: "We have to stop, once and for all, labeling as elitist whenever someone defends ways of making music that go beyond fast food. A song by Chico Buarque, for example, has enormous depth (not just musical) and, simultaneously, communicates with a broad audience. I am bothered when the souls of the multitudes are filled with emptiness and the banalization of mediocrity prevails."

Kokyuu is available now on Artway Records.

Read the full five-star review at Expresso.