Simantra Percussion Group
Great winner of the CIMCA’II - “City of Alcobaça” Music Chamber International Great winner of the CIMCA’II - “City of Alcobaça” Music Chamber International Contest - and 3rd place in the Percute Catarroja 2014 (II Percussion Music Chamber International Contest – Catarroja, Valencia, Spain), Simantra Percussion Group was formed in 2009 to give response to the need of having a group of studies and interpretative practices of the percussion music portfolio written in the XX and XXI centuries.
Working as an artistic laboratory it also has the goal of interacting with the different artistic expressions (arts of the body and visual arts) with contemporary music. Simantra’s work values the Portuguese and international percussion repertoire by making premiers, first auditions and music pieces by order. The recovery (archive and music conduction/execution) of historical pieces that belong to the Portuguese repertoire but are barely known by the public is also a concern of Simantra Percussion Group.
This project stands for illustrating new ways, new insights over musical performance and by the production and disclosure of an esthetics originality connected to the artistic/intellectual thought that can be widely understood. Therefore, Simantra Percussion Group presented along with the Wind Orchestra of Aveiro University theConcert Pour Trois Percussionists et Orchestre D’Harmonie, by Emmanuel Sejourné, did premières and first auditions of pieces like the première of Recycling, Coalling and Sampling group version) by Edson Zampronha and Tríptico by Hugo Correia, Portuguese composer, ordered by the group that had its première in “Guimarães 2012” European capital of culture. Simantra Percussion Group also performed by the famous Quórum Ballet and played alongside with the international solists Mark Ford (EUA), Katarzyna Mycka (POL) e Kuniko Kato (JAP).
The Group also performed in the CIANTEC’09 - International Congress of Art, New Technologies and Communication, in “Guimarães 2012” European Capital of Culture, in the CísterMúsica – Alcobaça’s Music Festival, in several editions of Tomarimbando – International Percussion Festival of the city of Tomar (Portugal) and in the International Percussion Festival of the city of Portimão (Portugal).