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In October, we lost Álvaro Salazar (1938–2026), a composer, conductor, teacher, musicologist and music critic whose work is an indispensable reference in contemporary Portuguese culture.
    Born in Porto, Álvaro Salazar was one of the first Portuguese composers to explore concrete and electroacoustic music specifically. In 1978, he founded Oficina Musical, a group dedicated to the study and promotion of new music. As a conductor, he was responsible for several Portuguese premieres by such influential composers as Janáček, Ives, Webern, Varèse, Eisler, Feldman and Ligeti, amongst many others. As a teacher, he played a key role in the development of the teaching of musical analysis in Portugal.
    In 1965, Álvaro Salazar decided to destroy all the works he had composed up to that point, effectively starting his career as a composer from scratch. Anton Webern, Edgar Varèse, Luigi Nono, Franco Donatoni and Morton Feldman were among the influences on his musical language. His compositional style is characterised by a preference for clear textures, in which he explores the boundary between determinate and indeterminate sound, by the use of silence as a structural and dramatic element, and by the controlled use of chance.
   In the interview given to MIC.PT in October 2018, Álvaro Salazar described his music as follows: ‘I have said a few times in interviews that “silence allows sounds to be articulated”. In other words, on the one hand, sounds are shaped by pauses of varying durations and by a composition in which pauses exist. On the other hand, one can also say — and I have done so many times — the opposite: rather than silence sculpting sound (an expression I use), I would say that it is sound that sculpts silence. In this sense, silence is already a work of art.’

Watch the MIC.PT video interview (in Portuguese) with Álvaro Salazar, recorded on May 30^th 2005: >> link.

>> Dossier No. 21 · Portuguese Composers of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries · Álvaro Salazar.

Miso Music Portugal and the Portuguese Music Research and Information Centre (MIC.PT), in partnership with the Centre for Music Studies (CESEM), will publicly present the ISCM World New Music Magazine #31, 2025, an issue dedicated to Portugal, on June 19, at 6h00 p.m., in Auditorium 3 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foun­dation in Lisbon, which is hosting this release event.
   Magnus Bunnskog is editor-in-chief of the World New Music Magazine, whose thirty-first issue features contributions from Ana Telles, Andreia Nogueira, António Ferreira, Cláudio de Pina, Filipa Magalhães, Frank J. Oteri, Glenda Keam, Jakub Szczypa, Manuel Pedro Ferreira, Miguel Azguime, Pedro Boléo and Pedro Prista. Financial support from the ISCM, the Gulbenkian Foundation and DGARTES (the Portuguese Arts Council) made the bilingual publication possible.
   The World New Music Magazine #31 follows the first-ever holding of the ISCM World New Music Days in Portugal in 2025. Promoted by the International Society for Contemporary Music, this is one of the most important international encounters dedicated to contemporary musical creation, organised in Portugal by Miso Music Portugal/MIC.PT. By bringing together articles, testimonials, essays and reflections by composers, researchers, performers, programmers and cultural agents, this edition of the World New Music Magazine constitutes not only a multi­faceted portrait of contemporary Portuguese musical creation, but also an opportunity to reflect on its place in the international context.
   The release will feature a round table discussion moderated by Pedro Boléo, bringing together the participants and authors who contributed to the publication. Under the theme What is new in Portuguese music?, the debate seeks to foster a shared reflection on the transfor­mations, challenges, continuities and driving forces currently shaping musical creation in Portugal. This gathering proposes a collective conversation on the present and future of Portuguese music, seeking to explore what is emerging as new within it: in languages, practices, contexts of produc­tion and circulation, and the relationships between creation, research, performance, technology, territory and listening.
   With this publication and its release, Miso Music Portugal/MIC.PT, in partnership with CESEM, reaffirms its commitment to the documentation, promo­tion, research and internationalisation of Portuguese musical creation, contributing to a greater visibility of its key figures and to the deepening of critical thinking about the music of our time.

The Call for Papers is now open for the 4^th MMTR, an initiative of MIC.PT curated by composer Isabel Soveral, which will take place on December 11^th at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. Organised in collaboration with the Department of Communication and Art at the University of Aveiro (DeCA), the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET–md) and the INET–md Group for Creation, Performance and Artistic Research, coordinated by Henrique Portovedo, this event creates a space for critical reflection and the sharing of research in the fields of contemporary music creation, performance, music theory and technology, inviting researchers, composers, performers, sound artists and students to present papers that explore the multiple relationships between music, technology and creative thinking. The 4^th MMTR will focus on practices of spatialisation, electroacoustics and sound diffusion via loudspeaker systems, running in conjunction with Listening Spaces, a series of concerts dedicated to Portuguese electroacoustic music and the exploration of the Miso Music Portugal Loudspeaker Orchestra as an instrument for the diffusion, interpretation and composition of the sonic space. The Call for the 4^th MMTR is open until September 11^th, 2026.

The work Curta-metragem n.º 2 (Brumas de outono), for solo cimbalom, by Daniel Moreira, was selected for the 2026 World New Music Days festival, as part of the official application by Miso Music Portugal / MIC.PT as the Portuguese section of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music). The 2026 World New Music Days festival, subtitled Columna Infinită and organised by the Romanian Section of the ISCM, will take place between 23^rd and 31^st of May in Bucharest, Romania. Daniel Moreira composed Curta-metragem n.º 2 (Brumas de outono) in 2025, at the request of percussionist Manuel Campos, the first musician in Portugal to specialise in the cimbalom, an instrument more common in Central and Eastern Europe. This work aims to contribute to the still limited cimbalom repertoire in Portugal, forming part of a cycle of solo pieces, all entitled Curta-metragem (Short Film), each inspired by a specific silent film. Curta-metragem n.º 2 is inspired by Dimitri Kirsanoff's Brumes d’Automne (1929), evoking the melancholic and impressionistic atmosphere of the film, in which a woman’s emotional turmoil is associated with autumnal images such as rain, shadows and mist.