The Omniae Large Ensemble is the main creative project of the awarded composer and drummer Pedro Melo Alves, who represents the new generation of unrestrained explorers of contemporary music in Portugal. Originally a septet who won the Composition Award Bernardo Sassetti in 2016, it became an orchestra after a commission by the Guimarães Jazz 2020 festival. With new arrangements, the music was conducted by the prestigious percussionist and conductor Pedro Carneiro and played by some of the leading figures of classical, improvised and experimental music of Portugal. The performance on the 22nd of November 2020 was the première of this ambitious musical project which later in 2021 was released by the label Clean Feed, as « Lumina », voted « Best Revelation Group » (El Intruso 2021) and described as a « fascinating new music suite » (All About Jazz), « boldness and erudition, in a work of breath and great modernity » (Jazzlogical) and « contained madness, a clever mix of genres, great formal freedom as well as a very sure taste for beauty » (Citizen Jazz).

Now it presents itself as a robust and resourceful contemporary music ensemble in Europe, open to new challenges and collaborations with all kinds of forward-thinking musicians. Here, Melo Alves’ visions of evasion and transcendence – echoes of a tempting impossibility – are put on paper to challenge. You hear intricate landscapes, with the extended sounds of contemporary music blended with the flow of improvised music and the disruption of electronic experimental music. You hear a collective of people that embrace on stage the sight of the unknown.