Rafael Toral – Traveling Light

Rafael Toral slows down jazz standards into a meditative soundscape. Together with clarinet, saxophone, flugelhorn and flute, he explores the harmonic tradition of jazz in a concert full of stillness and fragile intimacy. Traveling Light, which premiered at the Venice Biennale, is a special concert around Rafael Toral's guitar album with slowed-down jazz standards. Developed in parallel with Spectral Evolution, this project seeks direct dialogue with the harmonic tradition of jazz. From a renewed attention to the history and culture of the guitar, Toral enters into conversation with soloists on acoustic instruments: Bruno Parrinha (clarinet), Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone), Yaw Tembe (flugelhorn) and Clara Saleiro (flute). In Traveling Light, time slows down. The swing is stretched to its limits, making each chord an event - a small space in which the listener is drawn in. The harmonies simultaneously carry an emotional undercurrent that fits the feeling of loss and uncertainty of our time, and a celebration of light and beauty, inspired by the rich jazz harmonies of the 1930s. Thus Traveling Light becomes a new journey through Toral's ever-expanding musical universe - between open soundscapes and fragile intimacy.