An extended sound experience conceived as a living body in dialogue with the exhibition space.

A multi-channel amplification system is distributed throughout the gallery, forming an immersive sonic field that expands the visual and sonic materiality of the works by artist Cerith Wyn Evans. At the centre, Pedro Melo Alves brings his exploratory and sensitive universe to MAAT as a percussionist and researcher of the sonic possibilities of materials.
 
Over several hours, this sonoplastic discourse takes over the museum in a continuous performative gesture, alternating between acoustic and amplified, focused and fragmented sound, in harmony and dissonance with the sculptural bodies, exploring the passage between presence and dissolution, between flow and transformation.
 
This action challenges the audience’s experience, opening up a territory of subliminally mutating perception where sound dialogues in a logic of expanded time, entering an expanded exchange with the uninterrupted visual fluidity of the sculptures, multiplying them into infinite ephemeral resonances. With this, the performance echoes Cerith Wyn Evans' own impetus to make the invisible audible and the audible visible.

Note: Live sound installation. Throughout the performance, visitors are free to move around.

Information and tickets

Location: MAAT Gallery

Capacity: max. 80 people

Price: Museum admission ticket and all applicable discounts

• Access is subject to capacity, so those who wish to attend must collect a wristband from the museum’s ticket office (MAAT Central).
• Wristbands can be collected 1h30 hours before the event. 
• MAAT Friends benefit from free entry to the museum, but must also collect a wristband.

Dates:

• 10/01, 17.00–19.00. Completed
• 31/01, 17.00–19.00. Completed
• 14/02, 15.00–19.00. Tickets

About the artist

Pedro Melo Alves is one of the most prominent drummers and composers to appear on the avant-garde music scene in Portugal in recent years. An explorer of the expanded possibilities of percussion, an improviser, a composer for small and large ensembles, and a curator, his work is known for his exploratory qualities and ambitious blending of aesthetic circuits, from jazz and classical to electronic and experimental music.

His work has been awarded with several prizes (Bernardo Sassetti Composition Prize, El Intruso Newcomer Group 2021, Giorgio Gaslini International Award) and he has collaborated with artists such as Tony Malaby, Sun Ra Arkestra, Ingrid Laubrock, Peter Evans, Leo Genovese, Mark Dresser, Jim Black, Ra Kalam Bob Moses, Joe Morris, Meg Stuart, Vera Mantero, and Gaya de Medeiros. He has performed on stages such as The Public Theatre (USA), Jazzahead (Germany), 12 Points Festival (Ireland), Europe Jazz Conference (Portugal), Saalfelden Jazz Festival (Austria), Ljubljana Jazz Festival (Slovenia), Suoni Per Il Popolo (Canada), Südtirol Jazz Festival (Italy), and Jazz em Agosto (Portugal).

Born in Porto (1991), Pedro Melo Alves studied Jazz Drums (ESMAE, Porto, 2011), Jazz and Classical Piano (ESTAL, Lisbon, 2014), and Musical Composition (ESML, Lisbon, 2015). He leads and composes for projects such as his Omniae Large Ensemble, The Rite of Trio, and In Igma. He was artist-in-residence at Galeria Zé dos Bois with the improvisation cycle Conundrum, plays in percussion duets with João Pais Filipe and Pedro Carneiro, and forms part of several projects active internationally such as HIIT with Andrea Grossi and Simone Quatrana, Luís Vicente Trio, Alma Tree with Ra Kalam Bob Moses and Vasco Trilla, Surma and Memória de Peixe.

Pedro also composes for theatre, dance, cinema, and for classical music commissions, and has curated music cycles at Água Ardente (Lisbon).