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Details as performer
 António Pinho Vargas was born in Vila Nova de Gaia (1951). He graduated in History at the Faculty of Arts of Porto, completed the Higher Piano Course at the Porto Conservatory, and graduated in Composition at the Rotterdam Conservatory (1990), where he studied for three years with Klaas de Vries, as a scholarship holder from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
He attended courses and seminars with Emmanuel Nunes (Lisbon, 1984-88), John Cage (The Hague, 1987) and Louis Andriessen (Amsterdam, 1988) and composition seminars with György Ligeti in Hungary (1991) and Franco Donatoni in Italy (1992).
In 1995, the President of the Portuguese Republic awarded him with the Commendation of the Order of Infante D. Henrique. Three years later,the Municipal Chamber of Vila Nova de Gaia awarded him with the Medal of Cultural Merit. In 2012, he received the XI University of Coimbra Prize for contrubuting to Portuguese contemporary music.
He was a consultant at the Serralves Foundation (1994-2000) and at the Belém Cultural Center (1996-1999).
Connected to jazz for several years, he recorded seven albums: Outro Lugares (1983), Cores e Aromas (1985), As novas folhas mudam de cor (1987), Os jogos do mundo (1989), Selos e Borboletas (1991) and A luz e a escuridão (1996). He also played in many European countries and the USA, with musicians such as Rão Kyao, Kenny Wheeler, Steve Potts, Paolo Fresu, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen.
With his jazz group he performed in many European countries, but also in Cape Verde, South Africa, Macau and the United States. He received the Sete de Ouro Press Award three times for the best instrumental album of the year with Cores e Aromas, As novas folhas mudam de cor and Selos e Borboletas. He composed music for theatre and for five films by João Botelho and José Fonseca e Costa, receiving the award for best music at film festivals with Tempos Difíceis (1989) and Cinco Dias, Cinco Noites (1997). In 2008, he recorded the double CD Solo, which is considered one of the Albums of the Year in several publications. The second double CD Solo II (2009) completed this project, for which he received the José Afonso Prize, in 2012.
Since his stay in the Netherlands, António Pinho Vargas has dedicated himself mainly to contemporary music, occupying an essential place in the current Portuguese scene. Some of his works were performed in France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Brazil, England, Poland, Hungary, the USA, Russia and China. His work includes compositions for chamber music and solo instruments, such as Mirrors for piano, Amsterdam (1990), (played by Paul Prenen, Ronald Brautigam, Madalena Soveral, Tania Achot, Gloria Chen, Volker Banfield, Miguel Henriques, among others), Monodia (played by: Artis Quartet de Vienna, Arditti Quartet, The Smith Quartet), Três Versos de Caeiro (played by: Ensemble Nuova Sincronia, Northern Sinfonia, OrchestrUtopica, Remix Ensemble); works for orchestra: Acting Out (played by: António Saiote, J. Ramon Encinar and Martin André), Impaciência de Mahler (played by: Michael Zilm, Martin André, Joseph Svenson); Six Portraits of Pain (2005) for cello and large ensemble (played by Anssi Karttunen, cello and Remix Ensemble, with Franck Ollu); Graffiti [just forms] (2006), by Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa (Lothar Königs); Um discurso de Thomas Bernhard (2008), by Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa (Michael Zilm) and Uma Missão Impossível (2009), by OML (Michael Zilm, Enrico Onofri); for Choir and Orchestra: the oratorio Judas secundum Lucam, Joannem, Matthaeum et Marco (2002) (dir. Fernando Eldoro); the operas Édipo, tragédia de saber (1996) and Os Dias Levantados (1998-2002) (dir. João Paulo Santos) and the opera Outro Fim (2008) (dir. Cesário Costa).
Pinho Vargas participated in the Other Minds V Festival in S.Francisco, USA, (1999); at the International Music Theater Workshop at Oper-am-Rhein, in Dusseldorf, with the video presentation of Os  Dias  Levantados (1999) and obtained a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation for a stay at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, in Italy (2001).
The monographic CDs Monodia (EMI) – Versos, (Strauss), Os  Dias  Levantados (EMI), Graffiti [just  forms), Six Portraits of Pain, Acting  Out, (Numérica/Casa da Música, 2008) and several works were included in recordings by the Arditti Quartet (Etcetera), the Galliard Ensemble and The Scottish Brass Ensemble (DeuxElles).
Culturgest organized a cycle, “António Pinho Vargas Obra Completa”, with most of his work in February and March 2002. Commissioned by Culturgest, LxFilmes and RTP, the documentary "António Pinho Vargas, notes from a composer”, was directed by Manuel Mozos and Luís Correia. He published the books Sobre Música (2002) in Afrontamento and Cinco Conferências (2008) in Culturgest.
He finished his PhD at the University of Coimbra under the guidance of Prof. Boaventura de Sousa Santos (CES at the University of Coimbra) and Prof. Max Paddison (University of Durham) with a grant from the Science and Technology Foundation with the title "Music and Power: towards a sociology of the absence of Portuguese music in the European context" (CES/Almedina, 2011).
He is a Researcher at the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra and a Coordinating Professor (retired) at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. In 2013, Naxos released Requiem & Judas. In 2014, the same label rereleased Os Dias Levantados and Verses and Nocturnes and Warner rerelased Monodia. Two years later, Warner released Magnificat-De Profundis (Warner) and mpmp the Concerto para Violino. Among the most recent works are Requiem (2012), Magnificat-De Profundis (2013) (SPAutores Prize 2014), Concerto para Violino (2016), Concerto para Viola (2016), Memorial (2018), Sinfonia (subjectiva) (2019), Oscuro (2022), Collection & translations(2024) and Notebooks (2024).

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António Pinho Vargas

Last update: 17th August 2024