Seeking the transcendental: Simone Menezes' Metanoia

Simone Menezes is no ordinary musician; Cartier is no ordinary company. Together, they have created magic in the form of, Metanoia, the 72-minute documentary film element of their joint project which received its premiere at the Villa Medici in Rome on Thursday, May 26. The film is directed by Paul Smaczny and follows on from a collaboration between the photographer Sebastiāo Salgrado and Menezes (using the music of Villa-Lobos and Glass) around Salgrado’s stunning black-and-white photographs of the Amazon in Amazônia (currently available to view at Rome’s MAXXI Museum).

The word ‘metanoia’ can be defined as a transformative change of heart or shift in mindset: ‘meta’ from the Ancient Greek meaning ‘beyond,’ or ‘change’; ‘Noia’ meaning ‘intellect,’ or ‘that which can be perceived via reasoning’. Menezes finds this transcendental quality in all the pieces included in the multi-disciplinary Metanoia project (a compact disc has already been released on Accentus and the DVD/Blu-ray will be released on 2 September this year). Such daring concepts could only come from a deep, and free, thinker. Menezes (pictured below) studied initially in Brazil before moving to Paris (and subsequently back to Brazil). At 20, she formed the Camerata Latino Americana, and in 2020, Ensemble K, a group that describes itself as ‘Klassic, Kosmopolitan, Kontemporary, Kreative, Konnected,’ with a working praxis that centres on the collaborative (Kollaborative?).

Simone Menezes © Patrick Wack

‘In the beginning, orchestras didn’t invite women to conduct. So, I decided to create something, to perform music with musicians that I am glad to be with. After that, I got a place in an orchestra in Brazil’. Menezes was only the second woman to hold a professional place in a São Paolo orchestra. Trips to Europe resulted in a meeting with conductor Paavo Järvi at his Pärnu festival, an event with music ‘in a metanoia spirit – amazing musicians, very glad to be together, protected, and this changed my way of seeing things’.

Järvi changed Menezes' way of thinking: ‘He has an amazing technique: you go beyond, you show everything. Time, intention, even the way that instruments play’. Menezes’ took this and made it her own. ‘For me, Neeme Järvi [Paavo’s father] has a very interesting phrase, that music should come from a song or dance intention. And I try to find where we have songs, melodies and dance pulses and to make it work’ (we see this in the astonishing Polovtsian Dances part of the Metanoia film).

What truly marks out Menezes is her multi-disciplinary approach, which came from her first job at university in Brazil where all the departments - music, dance, technology - were combined. ‘I had to dialogue. It opened my mind to see how many things we have that we can connect. The next generation has a more multi-disciplinary mindset; and if we want to connect with them, we should also have this’. With this symbiosis comes a massive opportunity for learning but Menezes is also very open about the challenges she faces: ‘We must have a common goal, otherwise, it’s just two arts [music and film] that are not really connected’.

So does a project that centres on change, provoke change in its creator? ‘Yes, I opened up my universe each time. The projects are different: but Metanoia is my credo. Even Amazônia came from idea of metanoia, and I think the next project will be also.’ Menezes likens the act of metanoia to seeing/hearing more clearly: ‘Each person has his or her own glasses, but sometimes they are not so clean. Metanoia is like we come and clean our glasses, so we can see differently, better. Many things bring us metanoia: having a baby, or some meetings, like mine with Paavo’.

A key element in this extension of ourselves is one’s perception of beauty. Menezes gives a different definition from ‘Instagram beauty’ (as the film calls it): ‘Something that is beautiful is aesthetically beautiful, but also has some value and it’s true. When you see a mother working and taking care of her kids, its beautiful. That’s the difference’. This beauty that shines from within perhaps reflects the invitation for internal meditation from the Metanoia project itself. Menezes refers to Pärt and Glass as composers who ‘started to look at themselves and who they are and were able to connect to their own identity. What they do is so powerful, even though when you see it on the page it looks simple. Its powerful because there’s a truth about their identity’.

Certain periods of history – the Renaissance and the Reformation – are identified in the film as key periods of metanoia, with a particularly illuminating section from artist and Dürer enthusiast Michael Triegel.

Menezes offers a thread of growth, of combined learning, not end-points. ‘Building a definition of the transcendental’ is a collaborative process on this journey. So, where is this taking Menezes now? ‘I think it’s a process that we have to become more ourselves, with less ego,’ she says. Invitations for substantive inner change via the medium of music don’t come along every day, but now, more than ever, they are necessary nourishment for the soul. The work of Menezes and Cartier is, potentially, more important than even they realise.

You can find out more about Simone Menezes here.