Paulo Ferreira-Lopes, composer, researcher, and Associate Professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz (Germany), is In Focus on the MIC.PT in May.
He studied Composition with Constança Capdeville, Emmanuel Nunes, Antoine Bonnet and Horacio Vaggione, as well as Computer Music with Curtis Roads, having attended the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, where he worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen. He also made research at the Département d’Esthétique et Technologies des Arts of the University of Paris 8, having been resident artist and researcher at the ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe (Germany). Paulo Ferreira-Lopes seasonally teaches at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. He was a professor at the Arts School of the Catholic University of Porto, where he founded the Electronic Music Studio, the Olhares de Outono courses, and the CITAR – Arts Science Research and Technology Centre, which he led until 2007. The composer’s music has regular performances in Portugal and abroad.
Visit the MIC.PT In Focus section in May with a new interview with Paulo Ferreira-Lopes, marking the composer’s 60th anniversary.

The work Ao longe meu pai dizia... (2019) for alto saxophone and electronics by Ângela da Ponte (a composer published by the MIC.PT) is part of the concert programme by the Chilean saxophonist and composer Álvaro Collao León, which will occur on May 2 at the Echoraum in Vienna (Austria), in the context of the Suena Festival. This recital will also include works by Alberto Posadas, Ángel Hernandez Lovera, Antonio Hasbún-González, and Álvaro Collao León himself. ‘In music creation, invention leads to research and vice versa. One nourishes the other’, says Ângela da Ponte in the MIC.PT Interview from January this year. And she continues: ‘Many creators think their art is not research, but it is not true. There is always a research element, no matter how small it is. Then, there are extreme examples and stunningly inventive artistic works. Music is never only indeed music. It is science, literature, movement, and colour. We learn a lot when taking another perspective. Something new emerges in the intersection between areas.’

The work Mahâr (2022) for flute and electronics by Ângela Lopes (composer published by the MIC.PT) is part of the opening concert of the Aveiro Síntese 2024 Biennale (an Arte no Tempo initiative), occurring on May 4 at the Teatro Aveirense in Aveiro. This work ‘has a Kayal form based on the Râga Sujani Malhâr (one of the rain modes) and the rhythmic modes or Tâlas: Ekatâla and Tìntâla. It also uses ornamentations from the North of India’, says Ângela Lopes in the MIC.PT Interview from December 2021. This concert presents the Contemporary Music Group from the Music Conservatory in Santarém, oriented by the saxophonist Philippe Trovão. The musicians will provide the public with ‘mixed works for solo instruments and ensemble by Portuguese composers’ – João Pedro Oliveira and Jaime Reis (composers published by the MIC.PT), Nuno da Rocha, and Pedro M. Santos – ‘but also by Jean-Claude Risset, Aveiro Síntese “accomplice” since its first edition’, says Diana Ferreira, the biennale’s programmer.

Palimpsesto – Vestígios (2024) is the title of the new orchestral work commissioned to António de Sousa Dias (a composer published by the MIC.PT) by Miso Music Portugal. Its premiere will occur at the Música Viva 2024 Festival’s opening concert on May 3 at the Picadeiro Real in Lisbon. At this concert, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Neves, will also perform João Madureira’s Greeting, written by this composer published by the MIC.PT in 2010, apart from Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre and Schoenberg’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. For the performance of the latter two works, Camila Mandillo (soprano) and José Pedro Ribeiro (piano), respectively, will join Metropolitana on the stage.

Bruno Gabirro and Diogo Alvim are the two composers published by the MIC.PT, whose works are part of the recital entitled De resto, Orpheu não acabou, which the organist, composer and researcher Cláudio de Pina will give on May 7 at the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda Church in Lisbon, in the context of the Música Viva 2024 Festival. By the former, Cláudio de Pina will premiere a new work, and by the latter, he will present Peça com Vista, a work from 2018 to be performed from a graphic score based on a view of a square in the centre of Lisbon. The programme of this pipe organ recital will also include works by Ivan Moody (1964-2024), György Ligeti, Mauricio Kagel and Cláudio de Pina’s Quasi-lontano (omaggio a Ligeti) from 2023.

João Casimiro Almeida will perform at two concerts a new version of Cândido Lima’s Meteoritos (1973) for piano and electronics. The first concert will occur on May 16 at the Teatro Aveirense during the Aveiro Síntese 2024 Biennale. On this occasion, João Casimiro Almeida will also perform the music of Inés Badalo, Luigi Nono/ Maurizio Pollini and Sara Glojnarić. At the second concert, Música Contemporânea Pré/ Pós 25 de Abril, on May 19 at the Serralves Museum in Porto, apart from Meteoritos, the ars ad hoc ensemble will also perform the music of Álvaro Salazar, Amílcar Vasques-Dias (a composer published by the MIC.PT) and Filipe Pires. ‘Meteoritos is a work of great simplicity regarding its making, but of great complexity regarding the achievement of the final goal to attract the listener towards the sound and the subtleties of the piano poetics’, says Cândido Lima (a composer published by the MIC.PT) in the programme notes.

On May 4, at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, in the framework of the Música Viva 2024 Festival, the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble conducted by Pedro Carneiro will premiere two works by the two composers (published by the MIC.PT), Christopher Bochmann and Daniel Martinho. The works are (respectively) Canzona VII and Cyclus (both from 2024). At this second concert of the Música Viva Festival’s 30th edition, the Sond’Ar-te – with Sílvia Cancela (flute), Nuno Pinto (clarinet), Vítor Vieira (violin), Jorge Alves (viola), Luís André Ferreira (cello), João Casimiro de Almeida (piano) and João Dias (percussion) – will perform two more works, Labirinto da Metáfora (2024; premiere) by Hugo Vasco Reis and Uma peça apropriada (2022) by Rui Penha (both composers also published by the MIC.PT). All the works included in this programme have been commissioned by Miso Music Portugal.

The premiere of the work awarded at the Musa Prize 2023, the opera-monodrama based on Natália Correia’s poems, Há que ser rio by Diogo da Costa Ferreira (a composer published by the MIC.PT), will occur on May 9 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, at the Música Viva 2024 Festival. The performers of the work will be the soprano Filipa Portela, the MPMP Ensemble and Rita Castro Blanco (conductress). The musicians will also present the work O Abismo e o Silêncio (2001) by João Pedro Oliveira (a composer published by the MIC.PT). On April 18, Diogo da Costa Ferreira signed a contract with the National Arts Plan and the PSP Symphonic Band, inaugurating a participative artistic creation project developed by the composer in a school context. It will result in a didactic symphonic work for children and youth presented at schools and education communities in Portugal.

This May, Hugo Vasco Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT), will have various performances of his music works. On the one hand, the composer’s work Labirinto da Metáfora (2024) for flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello, amplification, and electronics, commissioned by Miso Music Portugal, will premiere on May 4 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon at the Música Viva Festival’s 30th edition. The work’s performers will be the musicians of the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble conducted by Pedro Carneiro. On the other hand, the works from the album Tateabilidade (2023) for Portuguese guitar, objects, and electronics, performed several times in April, will have their presentation at Lisboa Incomum on May 17. During this month of varied activity, Hugo Vasco Reis will also make an artistic residency (Awasi Art Week – LabVerde) from May 6 to 12 in Foz do Iguazú in Argentina.

The new acousmatic music cycle Sons Interiores/ Interior dos Sons by Filipe Esteves (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will premiere on May 12 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, at the final concert of the Música Viva 2024 Festival with the Miso Music Portugal’s Loudspeaker Orchestra and Dome. This work comprising five pieces – reciclagem, entropia, ressonâncias liquidas, disrupções electro-mecânicas e r.p.m. – ‘can be considered a counterpart to my first monographic CD, Sul e Sueste (2021)’, says Filipe Esteves. He adds: ‘If in the first the motto was the “city soundscape”, here, the idea emerged from the domestic environment, the intentional listening to sound sources which daily, either because they are almost inaudible or for their permanence and vulgarity, tend to be obliterated or ignored. Each piece results from an alchemy which aims to transcend the “simple” articulation/ transmutation of the sound materials to create a unique acoustic universe.’

An acousmatic music concert with music by Jaime Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT), whose programme will also include the premiere of Corpos Sonoros I: reencarnação, will occur on May 3 at the Music Conservatory in Viseu. The premiere of another composer’s work, Estudo de Densidades III (2024; Arte no Tempo’s commission), will occur at the Aveiro Síntese 2024 biennale (an Arte no Tempo initiative) at the New Music for New Musicians concert musically directed by the conductress Rita Castro Blanco. This concert’s programme will also include the work Movimentos flutuantes (2018) by Mariana Vieira (a composer published by the MIC.PT) and the premiere of Pedro Bento’s Desert (2024). Additionally, Catarina Gonçalves will perform Jaime Reis’s Fluxus, Transitional Flow (2013) for viola and electronics at the Re:Flexus Trio’s concert on May 10 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon during the Música Viva Festival’s 30th edition.

Circumesphere: to Bounce & Rebounce (2024) is the title of the most recent electroacoustic piece by João Castro Pinto (a composer published by the MIC.PT), which musically circumnavigates sound materials originating from spherical objects. The work by this composer, sound artist and researcher will premiere in the context of the 30th Música Viva Festival, within a session with the Miso Music Portugal’s Loudspeaker Orchestra and Dome, whose programme will also include works by other composers: Francis Dhomont, Marta Domingues, Mariana Vieira (a composer published by the MIC.PT), and Trevor Wishart. At this concert, which will occur on May 11 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, João Castro Pinto will also realise the sound projection of Circumesphere: to Bounce & Rebounce. ‘The music I compose has structural affinities with soundscape composition, experimental music, in general, and noise’, said João Castro Pinto in the MIC.PT interview from February 2018. He added: ‘Nevertheless, my compositional approach is heterodox, tending towards a broad set of references that includes the following musical genres: electroacoustic/ acousmatic, electronic (academic and non-academic), and minimal.’

The opera Regresso, with music and libretto by João Quinteiro (composer published by the MIC.PT), based on José Mário Silva’s poems, will premiere on May 31 and June 1-2 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. In this work, ‘the mythological time spills out on the invisible day-to-day. Five tangential characters live in Lisbon, made of interstices and dazzles. On Cais do Sodré, Eurydice (Laura Pimenta, soprano) goes out of a disco and catches the metro to Sete Rios. In Mouraria, Penelope (Camila Mandillo, soprano) contemplates the Tagus River through a window and waits. Sisyphus (Diogo Oliveira, baritone) drives a garbage truck “counting the days towards his retirement”. On the crossing of Av. de Berna with 5 de Outubro, Hermes (Marco Ferreira, tenor) feels “the deepest wound”. Prometheus (João Emanuel Silva, baritone) “confused alcohol with the Gods’ fire” and wanders around at night, while Homer (Miguel Azguime, actor) gets off the train in Santa Apolónia.’ The opera has the participation of five soloists (Marco Fernandes, perc; Salomé Pais Matos, hp; Henrique Portovedo, sax; Francisco Martins, acc; Miguel Amaral, ptgtr), the Concrète [Lab] Ensemble, Pedro Pinto Figueiredo (conductor) and Tiago Barreiros (staging).

The new Concerto for Orchestra (2024) by Miguel Azguime (a composer published by the MIC.PT), a Metropolitana commission, will premiere on May 19 at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon. The programme of this concert, by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, maestro Pedro Neves, and with the violinist Franz Peter Zimmermann, will also include Joly Braga Santos’s Nocturno (1942) and Johannes Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Additionally, Miguel Azguime’s two other works are part of the 30th edition of the Música Viva Festival, occurring between May 3 and 12 in Lisbon. On the 3rd, at the Picadeiro Real, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra with Pedro Neves (conductor) will perform La Transfiguration de l'Impossible (2021-2022) and on the 10th, at the O’culto da Ajuda, Ana Sofia Matos and Maria Isabel Mendonça from the Re:Flexus Trio will present the 2015 Son à ta demeure for clarinet and piano.

Paulo Bastos (a composer published by the MIC.PT) released a new phonographic album on different digital platforms in April. This new digital edition entitled Hallucinate comprises 14 electronic music pieces, each dealing with various themes. Paulo Bastos explains in the programme notes that these compositions ‘offer a psychedelic approach that allows the listener to plunge into a sound spectrum of blurring, distortion, and nonsensical elements. The 14 tracks of this album present the sonic perception of illusory things; there is an unreality even in the most seemingly concrete pieces. Everything is transformed and organised in a permanent Inter-Dream framework’. Additionally, Paulo Bastos’s piece Cinco quadros para Alice (2009), for flute and piano, is part of the didactic concert at the Sextas às Sete cycle, with Daniela Anjo (flute) and Sónia Amaral (piano), occurring on May 17 at the Music Theatre Dance Conservatory in Vila do Conde.

The 30th edition of the Música Viva Festival 2014 will occur between May 3 and 12 in Lisbon (Picadeiro Real, Nossa Senhora da Ajuda Church and O’culto da Ajuda). This year, the Música Viva programme comprises 45 works, including 14 world premieres, in the context of 14 activities (13 concerts and a workshop with Robert Normandeau), all of them dedicated to new music creation, with a particular focus on the music by composers residing in Portugal, including António de Sousa Dias, Bruno Gabirro, Christopher Bochmann, Cláudio de Pina, Daniel Martinho, Diogo Alvim, Diogo da Costa Ferreira, Filipe Esteves, Hugo Vasco Reis, Ivan Moody, Jaime Reis, João Castro Pinto, João Madureira, João Pedro Oliveira, Mariana Vieira, Marta Domingues, Miguel Azguime and Rui Penha. Additionally, as usual, Música Viva will have the participation of some of the most renowned and talented performers who have new music creations in the DNA of their repertoires. They are: Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Neves; Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble, conducted by Pedro Carneiro; MPMP Ensemble, conducted by Rita Castro Blanco; Power Trio, Vertixe Sonora Ensemble, and Re:Flexus Trio, among others. Finally, there wouldn’t be Música Viva Festival without the International Electroacoustic Composition Competition and concerts dedicated to electroacoustic music diffused through the Miso Music Portugal’s Loudspeaker Orchestra and Dome, with the highlighted presence of the composers Panayiotis Kokoras and Robert Normandeau.

In the context of the Call for Works for the ISCM World New Music Days 2025, as the ISCM Portuguese Section, the Miso Music Portugal/ MIC.PT has invited six Portuguese composers to include their works in the Official Application for the WNMD 2025 festival dedicated to the music of our time. The composers are: Amílcar Vasques-Dias and Mariana Vieira (Category 6 – String Quartet), with the works Acarro (2023) and String Quartet no. 1 (2023); Christopher Bochmann and Gonçalo Gato (Category 7 – Trio), with the works Nel mezzo del cammin (2017) and Elementos (2018); Fátima Fonte (Category 8 – Duos), with the work Cartas Portuguesas (2020); and Ângela Lopes (Category 13 – Electroacoustic Music), with the work Reciclo-Recírculos – em forma de sanza (2019). The pieces submitted by the Sections and Members of the ISCM – International Society for Contemporary Music, will be subject to selection by an international jury to integrate the programme of the ISCM World New Music Days 2025 – Thirst for Change festival, occurring between May 30 and June 7 2025 in Portugal (Lisbon and Porto).

In April, the MIC.PT activated a New Composer’s Page dedicated to Francisco Ribeiro, who studied in Aveiro with Evgueni Zoudilkine, Isabel Soveral, Sara Carvalho, and Henrique Portovedo. Born in 2001, the composer has distinguished himself nationally, winning prizes at Espinho and Viana do Castelo competitions. In 2023, his work Through my Glassy Veil (2023, for wind orchestra and narrator) won the First and Audience prizes at the 9th National Composition Competition of the Banda Sinfónica Portuguesa. Francisco Ribeiro is a percussionist who has taught Percussion at the Ensin’arte Music School in Crestuma since 2017. He is also a co-founder of the Nota do Meio quartet, dedicated to performing contemporary music for two pianos and two percussionists.

In April, the MIC.PT launched a New Composer’s Page dedicated to Jorge Ramos. This sound artist, composer and researcher is a versatile musician who divides his work focus between these three areas. Regarding composition, Jorge Ramos writes for various instrumental groups, and he is also interested in mixed, electroacoustic, electronic and film music. His works have been performed in different parts of the world. He has collaborated with important national institutions such as the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Arte No Tempo, Banda Sinfónica Portuguesa, and the Orquestra Clássica do Centro, among many others. He also holds a PhD in Music Composition from the Royal College of Music in London and collaborates with The ACTOR Project and CESEM. He is also an ENOA - European Network of Opera Academies artist.

In April, the Espaço Crítica para a Nova Música/ New Music Review Lounge published a new text (in Portuguese) by Jakub Szczypa: 25 de Abril e o apetite pelo novo. In this review, the author analyses and reflects on the Esta é a madrugada concert, in the context of the Music and Revolution – 50 Years of April 25 cycle, which occurred on April 19 at the Casa da Música in Porto. At this concert, the Casa da Música’s ensembles conducted by Peter Rundel and Brad Lubman – Remix Ensemble, Porto Symphony Orchestra, Adult and Children Choirs – performed the music by Jorge Peixinho, Pedro Lima, Vasco Mendonça and Daniel Moreira.

Organised by the Scientific Council of the Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre (MIC.PT) and curated by the composer Isabel Soveral, the 3rd Meeting on Music, Technology and Research will occur on June 14 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon.
Registration is free. Researchers interested in making a presentation at the 3rd Meeting on Music, Technology and Research should send the completed form to research@mic.pt until June 7, 2024.
This event aims to globally contribute to the progress and development of such disciplines as music creation, performance, theory and technology, prioritising subjects connected with contemporary creation and music technology – analysis and theoretical reflection on the creation and performance with electronics. It is a forum for discussion, encouraging music research on various aspects of aesthetic and technical thought in the context of music creation, performance and technology.
In this sense, a call is open for works in the following areas: 1) music creation and studio technical formation; 2) music notation of electroacoustic works; 3) music writing and studio creation; 4) development of new technological tools; 5) development of new theoretical tools in the field of electroacoustic music analysis; 6) interaction between acoustic and electronic instruments; 7) spatial configuration as a relevant parameter in the structure of the electronic music narrative.
This initiative aims to develop students’ literacy from different education cycles in music creation, focusing on music creation with electronics. One should emphasise the essential character of the aesthetic reflection for a correct understanding of the subjects concerning contemporary creation with or without electronics, the approximation between the new technologies’ potential and the creative thought through the analysis of relevant works and texts, and the theoretical reflection on the great references from the first decades of Concrete and Electronic Music.

The submissions for the 1st International Lied Composition Competition (Álvaro García de Zúñiga/ Casa de Mateus/ Sond’Ar-te) are open until June 21, 2024. The competition is an initiative by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble in partnership with the Casa de Mateus Foundation and the blablaLab Cultural Association. The competition is open to composers of any nationality, without age limits. The submitted compositions must be written for a duo, within a combination selected between soprano and the following instruments (with or without electronics): flute, clarinet, violin, cello or piano. The selection of the texts must encompass Álvaro García de Zúñiga’s work. The members of the competition jury are Iris Ter Schiphorst (composer; Germany), Philippe Leroux (composer; France) and Miguel Azguime (composer; Portugal).

The International Music Festival of Póvoa de Varzim announces the 17th edition of the International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim (CICPV). The 17th CICPV aims to award works by composers born after December 1, 1984. The music group invited for the 2024 edition is the Póvoa de Varzim Contemporary Ensemble, under the baton of Nuno Coelho. The works submission process is open until June 7, 2024, and the 17th CICPV jury comprises the composers António Pinho Vargas (president), Carlos Azevedo, Carlos Caires and Fátima Fonte.

The submissions for the 13th edition of the Composition Prize promoted by the Portuguese Author’s Society and Antena 2 are open until July 1, 2024. The Prize promotes and encourages contemporary music creation and disseminates young composers’ work. It’s destined for Portuguese composers, or the ones residing in Portugal for over four years, born on and after January 1, 1989. The submitted works should be for orchestra without soloist(s) and electronics. The premiere of the 1st-award-winning work will occur in the framework of the 14th Young Musicians’ Festival in Lisbon (September 2024).

The applications for the 7th edition of the Accordion Composition Prize, an initiative by the Folefest Association, are open until July 5. This competition aims to promote and encourage contemporary classical music creation for accordion, contributing to this repertoire’s qualitative and quantitative development. The Prize’s dedicatees are Portuguese composers, or those residing in Portugal, of any age. The application works (chamber music: accordion + 3-6 instruments) must be unedited. The Prize’s organisers reserve the right to realise the premieres of the awarded works. The Prize’s jury comprises Isabel Soveral (composer), Sérgio Azevedo (composer) and Paulo Jorge Ferreira (accordionist/ composer and jury president).

The submissions for the 3rd edition of the Francisco de Lacerda Millennium BCP Foundation Composition Prize are open until August 1, 2024. The prize promotes national music creation and it focuses on Portuguese or foreign composers living in Portugal. The submitted works must be for a classical orchestra. The compositions must also be unpublished. Their connection to the life and work of Francisco de Lacerda (or to the Azores, the composer’s place of birth) is optional but strongly encouraged. The premiere of the 1st-award-winning work will occur in September 2024 by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra at the National Library of Portugal in Lisbon. The winner will also receive a monetary prize. This year, Vasco Mendonça, Magnus Lindberg, Bernard Foccroulle, and Helen Grime constitute the competition’s jury. At its previous editions, the winners were the composers Samuel Gapp, with Still, Unfolding!, and Luís Neto da Costa, with Ecos de Trovas.

Since the beginning of this month, two new In the 1st Person Interviews (in Portuguese) with the composers Fátima Fonte and Fernando C. Lapa, recorded, respectively, on March 11 and April 4, 2023, at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, are available on the MIC.PT YouTube Channel.
Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 31 New Interviews to composers residing in Portugal, realised since 2019; as well as eight Interviews from the MIC.PT Archive, realised between 2003 and 2005.
The New Interviews, conducted by Pedro Boléo, were filmed at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon and realised in the context of the In the 1st Person cycle of the Music Today and Research & Invention Music radio broadcasts, produced by the MIC.PT and Miso Music Portugal for the Antena 2. They constitute a (re)visit to the creative universe of various composers published by the MIC.PT, following the Historical Interviews recorded by the MIC.PT almost 15 years ago. Today they are unique registers of the artistic evolution of each interviewed composer.
In order to access the Interviews (in Portuguese) follow the links below or visit the MIC.PT YouTube Channel.