Those who see Som.Sim.Zero (the orchestra composed by the Deaf Association of São Miguel Island, Onda Amarela, and the Rabo de Peixe Music School, and whoever else appears) stepping onto the stage at Rock in Rio Lisbon, can hardly imagine this project’s the embryonic stages. This accidental arrangement between a reticent Deaf Association and an Onda Amarela in a cold sweat because they didn’t even know sign language, today, after 5 years of trial and error, has become a sonic pillar of the festival. We listened to what Ricardo Baptista and Ana Bragança had to say about their first residency at Tremor 2018:

«In November 2017, we got a call from Kitas saying that they had discovered the Deaf Association of São Miguel Island and that the deaf had never been to a festival. This was Tremor’s motivation to bring ASISM to the festival, not only as an audience but also as artists who would take the stage. We, Onda Amarela, always have exploratory sessions before the residency itself, to get to know the group and, in ASISM’s first session, the participants were very skeptical, already saying that they did not want to participate and that they had only come out of respect for the invitation. By the way, in this first year, Tremor had offered artist bracelets to ASISM members, and no one went to see a single concert. But after this first residency, during the second year, one of the deaf people, Rodrigo did go. He was accompanied by his aunt, who made an effort to take Rodrigo to concerts on the first night of the festival. And there is a photograph by Paulo Pimenta, in which we see Rodrigo with his hand on the speaker “listening” to an entire concert. In that same year, the experience he shared with colleagues from the association was so intense that in the following days more deaf people came and even more the following year. Nowadays it is already quite normal to find the deaf community at Tremor concerts. They who, at first, told us that music made no sense to them.»