Salles, Felipe - Camera Obscura [CD]

Felipe Salles - Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura was the first rudimentary camera. Camera Obscura means "dark chamber". I use this as wordplay referring to my choice of classical chamber music instruments, as well as my approach to composition, which plays with imagery, color, light, and darkness.

The overarching theme in this project is perspective, imagined in different musical ways and from different angles. There is perspective in the way a picture is taken, or a drawing is made. A soundtrack helps shape the story in film or theater by choosing to express or suppress emotions. A story is told as a memory -- or the lack of one -- from one or more individual points of view, which can create or change perspective. I have always been drawn to the imagery and storytelling in music. Just like a photographer plays with exposure, colors, sharpness, or even how a picture is cropped, I can reshape or reframe a melodic idea by changing its underlying harmony, instrumentation, and rhythmic phrasing.

There are six main pieces involving the full chamber group: jazz quartet, string quartet, and woodwinds. Camera Obscura imagines the first light entering the dark box and the journey the sequential images convey after that. Perspective plays with the idea of different approaches of tango, from pop to jazz, to a more Piazzolla-inspired take or even to classical music. Rooms, a different name for chambers, plays with the translation of my last name (Salles, French for rooms) and uses a melody based on my and my children's names. A Deriva is a heartfelt ballad inspired by the poem by my sister, Helena Tabatchnik, and masterfully sung by Tatiana Parra. Platus is an homage to Plato, whose allegory, The Cave, is the original version of a camera obscura. Trem de Prata (Silver Train) imagines a train ride from my childhood, going from Sao Paulo to Rio de Janeiro overnight. The train no longer exists, so the piece imagines it magically returning to life for one last ride, stopping by many stations on the way.