Miguel da Silva lives in music like a bird that finds its element, like water that seeks its way through the landscape. He breathes it in, lets it glide through his fingers, and sees it reflected in every silence, in every breath of the moment.
Every performance is a conversation: a whisper between him, the notes and the listener; a journey that unfolds in tones, in breath, in the unsayable that only music can capture. His approach combines technical virtuosity, intellectual sharpness and emotional depth, making every performance a dialogue between musician, music and audience. His playing is a fabric of technique, intellect and passion. He lets the viola speak as if it were an extension of the soul, a voice that sounds as ancient as it is new. And alongside this virtuosity stands the pedagogue, the mentor who passes on the spark of experience, who invites younger generations to discover their own universe. This pedagogical dimension is a constant in his career, in which he shares his experience and artistic vision with younger generations. He spoke about these themes with Klassiek Centraal on the occasion of his performance on Saturday, December 6 as part of the Music Chapel Festival at Flagey.
The quiet awakening
The formation of an artist is often a silent revolution. For da Silva, this began after his adolescence, when he noticed that many of his friends lived "with a rather limited imagination." For him, music offered an escape, a universe of his own, a refuge. He speaks with quiet certainty: "It was a world of mine. I was a rather introverted and timid boy, and music offered me a lifeline." Today that core of his identity remains the same: music as a personal world, and at the same time a bridge to others. That world persists, a space where sound and emotion merge, where every note opens a window to the other. Music was there, inevitable and faithful, in loss and sorrow, in moments of doubt: "Music was always there to offer a horizon of hope." In the loss of his parents or loved ones, in emotional turmoil, music always offered him comfort and support.
Values and interpretation
Da Silva's interpretations are an echo of loyalty and freedom. He believes that a successful performance can change the life of the listener, that a note can be more than a sound, that a silence can say more than words ever could. "As for my interpretation, my values have always remained the same: to stay as close as possible to the composer's thought," he says, as if it were a mantra, a guideline for the heart of every sound. His youth, family and cultural environment shaped his musical identity, but he also acknowledges that personal freedom often arises "in opposition to one's environment" and in the space that cultural possibilities offer.
Freedom and tradition meet him in a delicate dance. As a "class defector" — someone who outgrew his social environment — he stepped out of the boundaries of the familiar world to find his own voice in the space of cultural renewal of the 1970s, a voice that carries tradition and at the same time reaches beyond the horizon. He finds personal freedom in "the space between the notes and in the power of evocative sound." There, in the emptiness, meaning emerges; there music breathes. He sees tradition as foundation, but freedom and expression arise in the space between the notes and in evocative sound.
Comfort and horizon
Music is a lifeline, a horizon that stretches across sorrow and doubt. Every melody carries comfort, every cadence a promise of light. In those moments, the viola becomes more than an instrument for him: it becomes a companion, a guide, a silent witness to human existence. Yet that lyricism always remains rooted in a concrete human story: music as a reliable companion, not as an abstract ideal.
Challenges and repertoire
His experience with the Ysaÿe Quartet brought him face to face with Beethoven, a "musical Everest" that must be climbed anew each time, with each performance opening new paths and revealing new heights. For the upcoming festival, he plays Mozart and Schoenberg with his students, two worlds that meet in sound and emotion. He explains: "In Mozart's K. 516, a quintet with two violas, you hear the full drama of his operas. Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, on the other hand, offers a sublime conclusion to the German romantic repertoire, a perfect ending before his step into the serial system. The viola stands at the crossroads of theme, harmony and dialogue in this work, and suggests all possible musical situations."
Music as breath, as truth
For Miguel da Silva, music is more than virtuosity; it is breath, humanity, the invisible made audible. His approach unites thinking, feeling and concentration in a single breath, a single sound. As a performer and pedagogue, he embodies a rare attentiveness: to the human being behind the note, to the silence in which meaning emerges. He shows that music encompasses listening, thinking and humanity, and that a successful performance can change the lives of listeners.
In his playing and teaching, he seeks the essence of communication: where sound is not form, but truth. This quest forms the thread running through his artistry. And in that truth, in that breath of music, both he and his listeners find a world that is theirs and at the same time everyone's, a world that breathes, resonates and never ceases to exist.
Saturday 6 December, 18.30, in the "String Quintet KV516" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) with the Quatuor Goldberg and in "Verklärte Nacht" by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). See also https://klassiek-centraal.be/music-chapel-festival-2025-de-vier-elementen-in-klank-en-geest/
