![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
![Sa, Joana: A Body as Listening (Clean Feed) Sa, Joana: A Body as Listening (Clean Feed)](https://www.teuthida.com/productImages/misc4/34393.jpg)
The concluding opus of a trilogy that began with "Through This Looking Glass" and followed with "In Praise Of Disorder", Portuguese pianist Joana Sa merges acoustic piano with well-balanced electronics and resonance, using preparations and fragments of previous recordings to create a uniquely expressive solo performance: forceful, fragile, and captivatingly fascinating.
In Stock
Quantity in Basket: None
Log In to use our Wish List
Shipping Weight: 3.00 units
EU & UK Customers:
Discogs.com can handle your VAT payments
So please order through Discogs
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
Sample The Album:
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
Joana Sa-piano, electronics
Click an artist name above to see in-stock items for that artist.
UPC: 5609063006643
Label: Clean Feed
Catalog ID: CF664CD
Squidco Product Code: 34393
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2024
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Valentim de Carvalho Studios, in Lisbon, Portugal, onMarch 2nd, 3rd and 4th, 2022, by
"Part of a broader, fragmentary project composed by several autonomous but complimentary outputs such as the (expanded) book 'a body as listening - resonant cartography of music (im)materialities' (Sistema Solar / Teatro Praga), the virtual installation www.abodyaslistening.com, the solo performance 'a body as listening' and the lecture-performance 'Are you there? - resonant cartography of music (im)materialities', this is composer-pianist Joana Sá's first solo record since 'Elogio da Desordem / In praise of disorder' (2013), as well as the concluding opus of a trilogy that began with 'through this looking glass' (2010).
In the meantime, she has been playing a key role in shaping the distinctive sound-world of a small, remarkable group of classically-trained Portuguese creative musicians - beautifully documented in 'Almost a Song' (2013), 'Di Lontan' (2015) or 'Turbamulta' (2018) - which also includes, among others, her long-time collaborators Luís José Martins and Eduardo Raon. And 2020 saw the release of 'Ways of notseeing', her mesmerizing duo record with Greek composer-singer Savina Yannatou.
Now back to the solo format, she presents a work of rare expressive power, one which shatters several dichotomies entrenched in our modern ways of thinking: composition versus performance, classical music versus other genres, composition versus improvisation, reason versus passion, mind versus body, and so on.
Like most of the great Western classical composers before the relatively recent advent of the composer/performer dichotomy, Joana is, first and foremost, a composer-performer, but she is so in a radical sense: her performances, either the ephemerous live ones or those that end up being preserved on record are her (publicly accessible) oeuvre. Her music eschews any form of notation, but this is not to say that it does not involve a great deal of prior thought and planning: at least some of it lives in her, exquisitely crafted but in a state of flux, as opposed to something that gets crystallized in a score. (One is bound to wonder whether, say, Beethoven would have at all written down his sonatas had there been recordings in his day.) On the other hand, despite this considerable predetermined dimension, spontaneous composition is central to it as well, making each performance unlike any other. And the fact that, while one would hardly call it 'jazz', it is being released by a label commonly associated with that term, suggests that perhaps our currently accepted ways of sorting musical genres are ultimately idle and arbitrary.
There are, of course, several other artists today whose creative process is not unlike Joana's, at least at the level of generality of the above description. But when it comes to the actual results of such process, she is utterly unique. She has the chops of a classical pianist and the energy of a rocker, and yet, seemingly paradoxically, can be a uniquely self-effacing performer, as if dissolving into sound somehow. She employs electronics and manipulated fragments of recordings as extended techniques themselves, opening up the functions of the piano - is it still a piano at all? - way beyond what is commonly heard, even among other adventurous explorers. That is, this is not merely a case of (subtly prepared) piano plus electronics, etc., but of a single, sui generis instrument, which allows for either extreme delicacy and sparseness or massive - at times even threatening - waves of sound. Through it, Joana creates a highly colourful work, as focused as it is intense, characterized by both stark contrasts and gradual shifts (another paradox?), providing a deep, immersive and profoundly moving listening experience."-João Esteves da Silva
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Joana Sa "Born in Lisbon in 1979, pianist, composer and improviser Joana Sá works in the field of new music/contemporary classical music. She is currently enrolled in a doctoral program in music (performance) at the University of Aveiro, as an FCT (Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia) fellow. She holds an undergraduate degree in piano, having studied under Caio Pagano and Paulo Álvares, in Lisbon, Paris, Castelo Branco and Köln. She received an INOV-ART grant in 2009 and, in 2010, was distinguished with a honourable mention from the Ernesto de Sousa Scholarship program. Joana Sá is particularly interested in incorporating other means and artistic areas in her works. Her first solo work, through this looking glass, shot by filmmaker and cinematographer Daniel Costa Neves, was released as a dvd+cd by the German label blinker - Marke für Rezentes in 2011. Her current work, IN PRAISE OF DISORDER, integrating texts by Gonçalo M. Tavares as read by Rosinda Tavares, was just released by Shhpuma, an imprint of Clean Feed Records. Joana Sá has performed in several festivals and as part of season programs of renowned institutions both in Portugal and abroad, such as Teatro Maria Matos, Gulbenkian Foundation, CCB, Casa da Música, Culturgest, Serralves, Kunst Station Sankt Peter (DE), Studium MusikFabrik (DE), Festival Música Viva (PT), Forum Neue Musik (DE), Ring Ring Festival (SER), Festival Jazz Cerkno (SL). She is one half of the duo of Almost a Song (with Luís José Martins), with whom she recorded the album Almost a Song, in 2013, and one third of POWERTRIO (with Luís José Martins and Eduardo Raon). She collaborates frequently with visual artist Rita Sá. Highlights of the collaboration between the two include installations at Gallery of Visual Arts, 255 Canal (New York) and Siggraph Asia (Yokohama). Joana Sá has made music for films, including Tabu, by Miguel Gomes, which was nominated for best music at the 2013 Sophia awards. She has collaborated with artists and projects in a number of musical genres (Deolinda, Simão Costa, Marco Franco, Nuno Aroso, Drumming GP and Peixe, among others). As co-coordinator (with Luís José Martins) of the music department at CENTA, Centro de Estudos de Novas Tendências Artísticas, at Vila Velha de Ródão (2007/08), she worked with the community (Sons do Salgueiral, Concertos Improváveis), as well as developing personal projects (50 anos - Cage, Concert for piano e POWERTRIO - ensemble residente do CENTA). In this condition, she took part in rExistir, a project with inmates from the Instituto Prisional de Castelo Branco and accompanied artistic residencies, seminars and concerts held at CENTA. Joana Sá has recorded for radio stations such as Deutschland Funk and SWR2, in Germany, and Antena 2, in Portugal, and has released music through blinker, Shhpuma, Creative Sources and Centa. Between 1993 and 2000 she played bass in Pinhead Society, a band with which she performed more than a hundred shows, including concerts at the main stages at festivals such as Sudoeste, Vilar de Mouros and Paredes de Coura as well as the Coliseu dos Recreios. With Pinhead Society she shared line-ups with bands such as Sonic Youth and Morphine and recorded for Música Alternativa and Bee Keeper." ^ Hide Bio for Joana Sa
9/4/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
Track Listing:
1. A Body As Listening, Pt.1 17:03
2. A Body As Listening, Pt.2 9:37
3. A Body As Listening, Pt.3 8:07
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
Clean Feed
Improvised Music
Jazz
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Instruments with Preparations
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Piano & Keyboards
Solo Artist Recordings
New in Improvised Music
Recent Releases and Best Sellers
Search for other titles on the label:
Clean Feed.
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)
![](https://www.squidco.com/images/spacer.gif)