Elegia Brasilis

Elegia Brasilis - Weeping of a Baroque Brazil This concert proposes to showcase two major figures of sacred music in late 18th-century Brazil who are nevertheless largely unknown in Europe: José Maurício Nunes García (1767 — 1830) and Emerico Lobo de Mesquita (1746 — 1805). Both of these composers, of mixed race and from working-class backgrounds, held prominent positions (choirmaster, organist, conductor) in the major religious institutions of their time: the cathedral of Rio de Janeiro for one, the tertiary orders of Carmel de Diamantina and Ouro Preto for the other. Their music, written for the liturgy and major festivals, bears the imprint of a language that was resolutely modern for its era. The Elegia Brasilis program aims to rescue this repertoire from European oblivion and ignorance, and questions a little-known reality: one where Afro-descendant composers, in a colonial and slave-owning country, were able to attain high functions and leave a strong musical imprint there. The program proposes to create a dialogue between these two voices—that of the capital, Rio, and that of the lands of gold and diamonds of Minas Gerais—centered around the major forms of funeral and penitential music.