COBRACORAL

Porto-based vocal trio, formed by three artists: Catarina Miranda, choreographer, who approaches voice as an essential component in her stage work; Clélia Colonna, singer and performer researching on eastern and mediterranean polyphonic singing; and Ece Canlı, artist and musician working with extended vocal techniques. 

COBRA’CORAL is a vocal project for 3 distinct interrelated voices working within an organisational system. A structure of transference that keeps the cohesion of a common pulse as well as sundry dynamics of reaction and adaptation to variation, establishing rhythmic, imagetic* (imagetíca) and narrative landscapes. A practice of placing signs and codes within a string of time, drawing circular states of mirroring, association and rupture, building up a live and common vocabulary for an ever-changing pyramid. By sustaining this progressive Pulsing System, the artists elaborate “an indeterminate composition” over which they are simultaneously reliant and independent, within a common responsibility for a living vocal landscape.

https://cobracoral.bandcamp. com/

Composed and performed by Catarina Miranda, Clélia Colonna and Ece Canlı
Recorded, mixed and produced by José Arantes
Mastered by Jonathan Saldanha
Artwork and cover design by Anja Kaiser
Recorded at the studios of Escola das Artes | Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supported by Programa Criatório by Câmara Municipal do Porto

Special thanks to Joaquim Durães, José Roberto Gomes, Fátima Fonte, Magna Ferreira, SOOPA, Hotelier-O, RAMPA, Sítio and Planetário do Porto

"Cobra'Coral is a project that entwines the voices of Catarina Miranda (Portugal), Clélia Colonna (France), and Ece Canli (Turkey). Each brings their artistic vocal practice into the coil: Miranda's choreographic exploration of orality, Colonna's researches into Eastern and Mediterranean polyphonic singing, and Canli's extended vocal experiments. The resultant a cappella braid threads time into a structure that maintains the cohesion of a common pulse thru the variegated dynamics of reaction and adaptation. 
Intricate hocketing, call and response, and layers of ostinati become the means with which Cobra'Coral engenders their distinctive sonic texture—a latticework for the voice. While one voice may insist on a two-tone melodic fragment, another may occupy itself with the rhythmic spaces left unvoiced by the first such that a harmonic base is constructed for the third to shimmer. Cobra'Coral further explores the potential of the voice by using sound effects and gesture to amplify the aural experience, suggesting that the limits of the voice extend out into electric and corporeal realms. The movements of the body also modulate the sound, as does as an artificial echo, a delay or a pitch shift. A modern vocal trio, Cobra'Coral is both electrified and electrifying.
Geometric pattern colours the surface that makes up Cobra'Coral, like the group of snakes from which they take their name. Each song develops its own breathing pattern—a communal rite focusing in on the movement of air—where motifs of inhalation and exhalation become systems that unfold time onto vocalized expression. A careful observation of the temporal passage of respiration, of its playful and life-sustaining dynamics, is their practice of communion. There is a common responsibility held in this spirited patchwork. Ritualistic chant, hypnogogic cycles, and contemporary vocal techniques shape the rhythmic, imagistic and narrative landscape that is Cobra'Coral."

Lendl Barcelos

Poster by Anya Kaiser / Concert at Planetário do Porto | Pt

COBRACORAL / UNDERSTAGE / RIVOLI 2021

COBRA'CORAL / UNDERSTAGE / RIVOLI 2021

In 2020, for the Walk&Talk Festival (Azores), COBRA’CORAL created a piece Corvo-Cabras-Formigas which proposed a series of vocal improvisations based on the names of animals that give the title to some islands and islets in the Azores.