In this program BLACKBIRD, the Maat Saxophone Quartet celebrates music by female composers who broke barriers in their time, creating powerful music when it was rare for women to be recognized as composers. Maat performs the program playing by heart, adding movement on stage, making this concert into a one-bow performance. Besides the playing of the four saxophones, Catarina Gomes will also sing, in a program that is a tribute to female creativity, equality, and musical freedom.

Maat Saxophone Quartet are Daniel Ferreira on soprano saxophone, Catarina Gomes on alto saxophone and singing, Pedro Silva on tenor saxophone and Mafalda Oliveira on baritone saxophone.

The concert is part of the ECHO Rising Stars concert series in Harpa in May 2026.

PROGRAM
Hildegard von Bingen (1098 - 1179)
O Virtus Sapiente (arr. Daniel Ferreira)

Lili Boulanger (1893 - 1918)
Nocturne & Cortege (arr. Daniel Ferreira)

Henriette Bosmans (1895 - 1952)
String Quartet (arr. Adrian Tully)

George Gershwin (1898 - 1937)
Rhapsody in Blue (arr. Johan van der Linden)

Paul McCartney (1942)
Blackbird (arr. Camiel Jensen)

George Gershwin / Nina Simone (1933 - 2003)
Porgy, I is your woman now (arr. Camiel Jensen)

Aleksandra Vrebalov (1970)
Four Faces, Four Wings

The Maat Saxophone Quartet plays groundbreaking music and tells stories that move people. They think, play, and color outside the lines of the classical saxophone quartet. With innovative programs in which music merges with other art forms, Maat creates space for urgent themes. As four Portuguese musicians based in the Netherlands, they speak one musical language and connect two cultures. Maat is curious, open, and unafraid to take the plunge.

Maat is the winner of the most prestigious classical music competition in Portugal, the Pr<émio Jovens Músicos (2018), and of the Dutch Classical Talent Award(2022).

Maat highlights the voices of living artists from diverse art forms and backgrounds.They have commissioned more than 20 new works from composers, and collaborate with prominent organizations in the Dutch cultural landscape, including AYA Dance Theatre, Oorkaan, and Theatre Na de Dam. 

In 2020, they released their debut CD, “Ciudades.” According to De Luister magazine, "we can be brief about the playing of Maat: promising, devilishly good, and heavenly contagious in all works.” In 2023, they released their second CD, “Renascer,” featuring Portuguese guitarist António Carlos Costa, combining traditional Fado and contemporary music. Both CDs were released under the label 7 Mountain Records Amsterdam.

Maat aims to reinvent the saxophone quartet and to present it the most diverse lineups and genres. The 2025/2026 season marks an important milestone: Maat will debut in Europe’s major concert halls during the ECHO Rising Stars tour, present the virtual opera Metamorphosis internationally, and go on tour in Brazil. A new work by Johan de Meij for saxophone quartet and wind orchestra will have its world premiere, and Maat will create a new children’s production in collaboration with the Philharmonie Luxembourg. 

Maat has been nominated as ECHO Rising Star by Philharmonie de Paris, Gulbenkian Foundation and Casa da Música...