Poster
The first capital of Minas Gerais, the city of Mariana, was named in honour of Queen Dona Maria Ana of Austria, wife of King João V and mother of Princess Maria Bárbara, the first woman composer and a leading figure in the cultural world of her time.
It was this extraordinary historical coincidence that led me to challenge the great Brazilian composer João Guilherme Ripper, a leading figure in Brazil, to create a work specifically for Mafra and for the Infanta Maria Bárbara, to be premiered on “International Women’s Day”, a date to which I am personally connected since being invited by the UN (UNFPA) to join the “White Ribbon” (He for She) campaigns, which I have been doing for years in Brazil, Turkey and Portugal.
The “Pequeno Concerto para Mafra” (Little Concerto for Mafra) recalls the gold route in its first movement (“Brasiliae aurum pro gloria regis”), the Princess composer herself in the second (“Sarabanda para a Infanta Maria Barbara”), and ends with a tribute to the Princess’s teacher, Domenico Scarlatti (“Variações sobre um tema de Scarlatti”), an expressive homage to the historical ties that link Brazil and Mafra.”