The Lisbon Conservatory of Music, a place in the Gulbenkian Choir, playing in a band that has performed at the Super Bock Super Rock festival and a degree in Cinema are just a few steps on Gonçalo Abrantes’ artistic journey. This young Portuguese artist, currently living in London, talked to The Art Boulevard about his most recent project, “For A Film”, which combines music and photography, and of course we wanted to share it with all of you!

Hi Gonçalo! Tell us a bit about the “For A Film” project.

“For A Film” is a project that consists of making soundtracks to photographs. It’s as simple as that! It’s ironically called “For A Film”, because we are so used to thinking of a soundtrack as being exclusively part of a film, and the question is: Why? Why not apply music to other artistic formats? I try to transform the photographs that are sent to me, into short stories with their own sound. The project has its own website and a Facebook page where people can share their best photos, listen to the type of work I do, leave their opinion, and even vote for the photograph they wish me to work on next!

How did your idea for this project come about? And what have been the main difficulties you’ve had to face?

I only became aware of how the idea had occurred to me once I had had it! At the time I didn’t think about the reasons how it had come about or about the potential that the project had or even if it was a really original idea as many people have told me. It was only later on, when I was asked this exact same question, did I realise about the ‘how’s’ and ‘why’s’. My roommate at the time was a photographer, and she showed me a piece she was working on which consisted of her taking a photo from her bedroom window every day, for a year. It may sound simple, but the way it was done, it was almost like a newspaper, some weeks were less noteworthy, others shows good periods and bad, it was very beautiful, and it left a bigger impression on me than I had expected. A few days later at my parents’ house, I sat at the piano (like I always do) thinking about those photographs that almost had a life of their own, I began to play a melody that has turned out to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever done. That’s when I thought “why not put music to photographs?”, and I accepted my own challenge.

I haven’t really had many difficulties at all and it has been an amazing experience for me as a songwriter, because its the photos that inspire me, they suggest things to me that I would never have thought of before while composing a musical piece. This way I end up making music that without the visual support of the photographs sent to me by the public, I would never have done before. I think that the main difficulties are still to come! Right now the project is very new, particularly for a website, and I haven’t received too many images until now, so it has been easy to manage the time I have to compose. But it’s becoming more and more well known and people are starting to send photos everyday, so I reckon Ill have to start pre-selecting the images in order to organize my time… or hire a team of composers!

"The Aquarium", musical piece composed by Gonçalo Abrantes for this photo.

How do you think a musical piece can enrich an image? Do you think that it empowers the imagination of the person viewing the photograph? Or on the contrary, that by associating a specific melody with it restricts its visual impact?

Maybe a mixture of both. I think that first it frees the imagination, in the sense that a person wouldn’t imagine a story or anything else different to the actual image just by looking at it. Of course there are many people, particularly those who know about photography that would do so immediately. However, a chord, a sound or a musical phrase don’t tell us exactly what to imagine. They might suggest joy, sadness, fear, simplicity, something more epic, etc… But have you noticed the wide range of possibilities that lie within each of these characteristics? On the other hand, it remains a wide-open space with countless doors, a suggested space perhaps, but a space where each door belongs to a listener.

Let’s talk about you. Tell us how your passion for music came about and also about what else you’ve done professionally in this area?

Well, my passion for music arose when I was around 9 years old, when I started studying music. I started playing the clarinet, but 3 years later I quit to start playing the piano, which was the instrument that I had always wanted to learn to play (even today I bare the guilt of destroying my grandmother’s piano which, according to her, I insistently pounded!). Some years later I finished my musical training at the Lisbon Conservatory of Music and I also did a course on composition at the Escola Superior de Música, but due to stylistic differences I ended up dropping out after a year. That was when I joined the Gulbenkian Choir, where I have been for the last ten years, until this summer. During that time I took part in two musicals, I taught music to children, and also went on an interesting journey with my band, Soapbox. We won the “Preload” Prize at the Super Bock Super Rock Festival in 2009, as well as the Worten Award for best alternative band and the chance to record an album, which unfortunately never came to light. Over the last few years I have collaborated with various producers by composing advertising jingles in Portugal. Right now I’m based in London as I won a scholarship to do a Master in “Composing for Moving Images”, at the City University London.

We know that you also studied Cinema. Is it an interest that emerged together with music, or is it a completely different passion of yours?

Actually, it was an interest that came in contrast to music. Just when I had decided to leave the course I was studying on composition, I thought about doing something different, and yes, cinema was my second passion. My interest for cinema linked to music grew a lot over the course of my degree. I started making music for my colleagues work, and by the end of the course I was making the soundtracks for almost all of my colleagues film projects, and that was when I realised how much I enjoyed joining the objectiveness of an image with the abstract emotions of music. It’s incredible what music can do to a movie scene, both positively and negatively. Some simple chords can totally transform the meaning of a scene, and completely destroy the producer angle. Having that power is amazing, and it can be used in a way that makes the image unconsciously able to push the right buttons!

How do you feel about the current state of the arts in Portugal? Do you think there is a lack of artistic quality, or a lack of interest from the public?

The truth is that I came to London, and even if I hadn’t won the scholarship, I would have come anyway. The arts in Portugal are in a very bad state, and it has nothing to do with lack of artistic quality or lack of interest from the public. There are good artists, like there have always been, and the public level of interest is what it has always been but the problem is that external economic factors influence the art world. The really good artists don’t have any means to show their work! They can’t exhibit, record or edit their work, or whatever they need to do, because of the fear among the “elite” to invest in uncertain things. The public, by its turn, as everybody knows, doesn’t have purchasing power, doesn’t consume art regularly and, worse than that, most of the times not even has the chance to do it. The public in turn, as everyone knows, doesn’t have the chance to buy or consume art regularly, and what’s even more alarming, is that a lot of the time they’re not even given the chance to do so. The public consumes what it’s given and they learn through this. I feel that there has never been a true effort to culturalise the population. Here in London, things aren’t easy but all sorts of people come here in search for an opportunity to show what they can do and show what they can offer. There are cultural activities on every corner, but at least there is something that makes us believe that it’s possible for us to develop our work!

What are your goals for the “For A Film” project? And for your career?

My main goal for “For A Film”, in the medium term, is to do an exhibition here in London with the photographs of all the participants and my music. I picture it would be in a dark room, with screens and pairs of headphones. It’s an idea that I like because of its simplicity and I would like to keep it simple.

On a professional level, I would like to successfully finish my masters and get a job in the field of music for cinema, it’s a different challenge but one that has always fascinated me. I also don’t want to stop singing, whether it be in a choir or as a band singer, so I intend to continue developing my own songs, as I always have, and maybe find a new musical project here in the land of Her Majesty.

Oficial website: http://www.forafilmproject.com/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/forafilm

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/forafilmproject