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Brief notes:

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Heroínas na memoria (Heroines in memory) is a multimedia project that spans around 40 minutes of duration. Is scored for a large ensemble which includes: large wind orchestra, surround band, soprano solo, speaker and fixed electronics; reinforced with an optional video installation. It was the winner in the wind orchestra category in the IX Martín Códax Music Awards 2022, Galicia, Spain. Commissioned and dedicated to the Meaño Musical Union Wind Orchestra (BUMM) and its conductor, Diego Javier Lorente López. First performance was given by the Meaño Musical Union Wind Orchestra with Rosana Domínguez as soprano solo, conducted by Rafa Agulló Albors at Municipal Auditorium of Valga, Spain, December 5, 2021.

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When Diego (Diego Javier Lorente López) contacted me with the proposal to join a multidisciplinary project that was being developed from by the Meaño Musical Union Wind Orchestra, I could not help but feel a parallelism with that other work of mine, The heroes of Orzán, composed and premiered in 2012. Both works, the only ones I have written to date for be narrated, voice-over, parallelly to the music; are framed in an altruistic and selfless heroism, with locations in Galicia and originally written in my mother tongue, Galician. Perhaps for not fall into self-imposed mannerisms, or perhaps due to the Alzheimer's that plague my father along all these years, both the music and the formal proposal of "Heroínas na memoria" is much more visceral, bringing the dramatic charge to the 'memory' as subject instead of the inherent heroism of "The heroes of Orzán". This can be perceived more specifically throughout the entire second movement, which was actually the first to be composed, leading me to think, looking back, that perhaps I have actually been writing about my father all along.

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Being divided into three movements that correspond to the three narrated stories, uninterruptedly, "Heroínas na memoria" is cast under a huge monothematic structure, developed throughout multiple variations, and taking this monothematic resource to support integrate all the events under a single unifying concept: the persistent struggle for freedom and the remembrance as identity. 

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I. As lavandeiras de San Simón (The washerwomen of San Simón). With the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) as backdrop and the prison of San Simón island as scenery, this first story, narrated through the innocent eyes of a little-girl who longs for her father, immerses us in the absurdity of war conflicts. On our journey to the island, we discovered a clandestine network of brave women, known throughout history as "The washerwomen of San Simon" who, from the shadows, made washing clothes an act of freedom. 

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II. As irmás Touza (Touza sisters). This second story takes us to the Europe consumed by the maelstrom of the Second World War (1939 – 1945). It is a tale of pilgrimage in search of freedom, of Dante and Virgil crossing the mountain of purgatory surrounded by tormented souls. We embark on this journey through the eyes of Abraham Bendayan, traveling the miles that separate Nazi-ravaged France from the forgotten Galicia in the northwest of Spain; with help of a clandestine network of people, among them the Touza sisters, thanks to whom hundreds of souls found a new beginning.

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III. As heroínas de Sálvora (The heroines of Sálvora). In this third and last story we travel to the island of Sálvora, a small island located near the coastline of Galicia, northwest Spain; going back in time to the events that occurred in 1921, when the Santa Isabel shipwreck left more than 200 dead, being catalogued as the worst shipwreck in the history of Galicia. It was precisely the boat of three women, who later would be known as "the heroines of Sálvora", the key to save the lives of almost thirty passengers. A feat that earned to Ribeira the title of "a very noble, very loyal and very humanitarian city", being granted by Alfonso XIII.

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                download it in PDF: Español - English.

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