Quando a Rosa enxergou o rio is an electroacoustic work that weaves together recorded speech and accordion improvisation. The voice belongs to my great-grandmother, Rosa Gonçalves, an 80% blind Brazilian woman who grew up in the early 20th-century countryside of São Paulo. In a 2012 conversation, she recalls playing in the woods with her siblings, wandering until they discovered a river — a memory reflecting resilience, and the courage to find one’s path in life.

Accordionist Neil Sutcliffe improvised over a hand-drawn map of the woods, responding to the places Rosa mentions in her voice recording. Material from both recordings were then explored,  finding new ways to transfer their interaction.