Sebastião Salgado: Amazonia rainforest project
To mark the exhibition of Sebastião Salgado’s photography of the Amazonian rainforest at Rome’s MAXXI (Museo Nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo), HarrisonParrott presented a special multimedia concert in collaboration with the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Under the baton of acclaimed Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes and featuring the soprano Camila Titinger, the programme focussed on the Amazon, including Philip Glass’ Metamophosis 1 da Aguas do Amazonas and the highlight was the projection of Salgado’s most significant photography to accompany the Suite: Floresta do Amazonas by Villa-Lobos.
For seven years, Sebastião Salgado immersed himself in the most remote corners of the Brazilian Amazon, photographing the forest, rivers and mountains and the people who live there. With 200 photographs, the exhibition also gives a voice to indigenous communities through their testimonies.
The open-air concert took place in Rome’s Parco della Musica ‘Cavea’ space on 22 July.
On 14 October, London’s Barbican Centre came alive to the sounds of the Amazon — the next stop for this exciting international project which combined music and images to create a striking impression of the Amazon rainforest. Celebrated Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone de Menezes conducted the Britten Sinfonia, with acclaimed soprano Camila Titinger making her London debut. The programme featured Bachianas Brasileiras No.4: Prelude, and Floresta do Amazonas: Suite by Villa-Lobos — famous indigenous melodies of the Brazilian tradition revisited through a classical language inspired by Bach — and Metamophosis 1 from Aguas do Amazonas by Philp Glass, a large symphonic fresco dedicated to the rivers of Amazonia.
The multimedia concert was accompanied by the projection of some of the most significant video-photographic works of Maestro Sebastião Salgado, winner of the 2021 Praemium Imperiale award for painting, whose Amazônia exhibition opened at London’s Science Museum on 13 October 2021 and runs until March 2022.