Maria da Rocha - Beet Root & Other Stories (2018)

Portuguese, violinist and violetist with parallel careers in erudite and experimental improvised music, besides dedications to fado and tango, Maria da Rocha has in “Beet Root & Other Stories” her first solo album. Successor of the duo recorded with Maria W. Horn, “Pink”, this new title presents one of several versions already established for the work-in-progress “Beet Root”, after the first approaches inspired in “Circe”, by Julio Cortázar, in which the author’s compositions, mainly graphic scores painted with china ink and collages with vegetal paper, were interleaved with others of the Baroque period of composers like Bach, Biber, Uccelini and Corelli. Along her path, da Rocha enhanced the use of analog synthesizers, the processing of both the violin and the viola with effect pedals and the resource to magnetic tapes, and that investigative work is well reflected here. A solist in interpretations of Beethoven, Hindemith, Hoffmeister and Telemann, among others, and a member of several symphonic orchestras, her interest is more and more oriented to the violin’s possibility to «transcend itself in other musical languages besides the classical one». In the present case, she does it with a dramatization «intensively exploring the feminine universe», telling the story of a beet and a witch in an unnusual way and with a distinctive personality. Highly recommendable.