‘The Seventh Sun,’ narrated by actor F. Pedro Oliveira and featuring illustration workshops and discussions, is crafted for younger audiences. However, it is a show for all ages, focusing on how to “care for planet Earth,” set to take place in the small auditorium of the CCB and its big screen.
The concert emerged from a series of coincidences and desires. Initially, composer Vasco Negreiros, who had read ‘The Seventh Sun’ in a Hindi language learning book, was inspired to compose music based on the story.
Subsequently, the German ensemble Alafia commissioned him for a piece to be performed live. Negreiros then discovered short animation films by Beatriz Bagulho, which matched the narrative’s style, as he explains in a video available on the CCB’s website.
The final output is a show set to debut at the CCB and a book translated by the composer, featuring bilingual text, Bagulho’s illustrations, and an audio supplement. This format enables readers to engage with the story by listening to the music or the text, or “doing both simultaneously,” offering a perspective beyond the performance, according to the composer.
As Beatriz Bagulho expresses in the introduction, “‘The Seventh Sun’ is a concert born from a legend, developed collaboratively, and driven by the desire to share a story that teaches us to care for the planet.”
The tale begins “many, many years ago” when the sky was occupied by seven suns, leaving only one, according to the legend of the Munda people, “who live far from cities in the south and east of India and neighboring countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.”
The legend, as presented in the work, unfolds as “a luminous allegory on the relationship with the environment, depicting humanity’s total subjugation to nature, followed by its excessive domination and, ultimately, balance.”
Negreiros aimed for a composition resonating with younger audiences, with “music based on the narrative,” a concern shared by Beatriz Bagulho: creating an imagery that transports the audience to the stage’s unfolding scenes and, regarding the book, considers how readers flip through pages, view images, and how these elements “can add to the story” without constraining the readers’ imagined world.
The Alafia Ensemble’s instruments—flute, clarinet, violin, mandolin, cello, and piano—depict landscapes, voices of people and animals, culminating in a final song leading to the sunrise resolving everything.
On stage, music and images are accompanied by narration from F. Pedro Oliveira; in the book, the task falls to Joana Manuel. In both formats, the story concludes identically: “Since then, in the morning […], the sun rises in the sky and illuminates all.”
Vasco Negreiros, a professor at the University of Aveiro, studied composition, viola, piano, and conducting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, completing courses in Analysis, Theory, and Choral Conducting. He graduated in Conducting in Germany. In Aveiro, he leads the Vocal Ensemble dedicated to early music. His doctoral research, supervised by Owen Rees (Oxford), resulted in the edition of the Livre de Motetes by Frei Manuel Cardoso, published by Imprensa Nacional. Among other works, he composed the children’s opera ‘Words in the Belly,’ the suite ‘Tongue Twisters and Lingua Twisters,’ and the piece ‘Amen.’
The Alafia Ensemble, based in Cologne, Germany, was founded in 2020 and comprises Leonardo Pedroza (flute), Marina Eichberg (violin), Iain Lennon (mandolin), Paula Sagastibelza (cello), Lucas Huber Sierra (piano, at the CCB), and Nikola Janjic (clarinet). In the book edition, the piano part is performed by Olga Riazantceva-Schwarz.
The show will be held in the small auditorium of the CCB on Sunday, May 4, at 4:00 PM, and on Tuesday, May 6, at 11:00 AM, for schools, followed by a discussion and book presentation, published by Boca and the MPMP – Musical Heritage Alive platform.
Beatriz Bagulho will oversee illustration workshops on Thursday and Friday, May 8 and 9, for schools, and on Saturday, May 10, for families.
