In July, MIC.PT features a new interview with Daniel Schvetz in the In Focus section, marking his 70th birthday.
Born in Buenos Aires, this composer (published by MIC.PT) has been living in Portugal since 1990. He has founded numerous chamber ensembles and groups, for which he has composed original works as well as adapted pieces by other composers. These adaptations have become part of the repertoire of various music education institutions and different ensembles. Daniel Schvetz is active in the fields of teaching, composition, and as a pianist. His catalogue includes works for a cappella choir as well as for choir with instrumental accompaniment, chamber music, solo pieces, orchestral works with and without soloists, operas, an oratorio, and musical theatre pieces, among other genres. As for his artistic approach, the composer emphasises that he has no aspirations towards modernity or contemporaneity but feels a strong connection to everything that constitutes the ‘today’. Daniel Schvetz expresses discomfort with the idea of the creative act treading on ‘familiar’ ground, stating that his intention is for listeners to experience the same doubts, uncertainties, struggles, and realisations as he does.

Amílcar Vasques-Dias (a composer published by MIC.PT) is a member of the jury for the 2025 Accordion Composition Award, chaired by accordionist and composer Paulo Jorge Ferreira. This competition, organised by the Folefest Association, aims to contribute to the growth, both in quantity and quality, of the contemporary repertoire for the accordion. In addition, Amílcar Vasques-Dias will be involved as a composer and performer in the Piano Forte project, celebrating the legacy of Ulf Ding, the musician and luthier who lived in Montemor-o-Novo until his passing in 2023. The project also serves as a tribute to and continuation of the heritage of the fortepiano – the precursor to the modern piano invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Piano Forte is organised by Oficinas do Convento – Cultural Association for Art and Communication, founded in 1996 and based in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal.

Ângela da Ponte (a composer published by MIC.PT) is part of the jury for the 2025 Accordion Composition Award, with applications open until July 18. This competition, an initiative of the Folefest Association, is open to composers of Portuguese nationality or foreign residents in Portugal of any age intending to promote and encourage the creation of contemporary music for the accordion. Additionally, on August 29, at the Centro Cultural Raiano in Idanha-a-Nova, percussionist Tiago M. Soares will perform Ensaios Sobre Cantos IV for amplified adufe and electronics, a piece composed by Ângela da Ponte in 2019. In an interview with MIC.PT in early 2024, Ângela da Ponte shared: ‘Music is never self-contained. It is, in fact, a way of inhabiting the world. No matter how much we try to claim that “our work is not political” or “not philosophical”, it will always reveal a position’.

The composition Das sombras que nos cegam by Carlos Brito Dias (a composer published by MIC.PT) is one of the finalist works at the 18th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim. It will have its premiere on July 16, performed by the ars ad hoc ensemble. During the concert, both the winning composition and the piece awarded by the audience will be announced. This event is part of the 47th International Music Festival of Póvoa de Varzim. Another recent work by Carlos Brito Dias, where the shadows are so high, has been selected for the Viola-Viola-Viola workshop featuring Geneviève Strosser and Georges Aperghis. The piece will premiere as part of the renowned Darmstädter Ferienkurse in Germany, which run from July 19 to August 2. Additionally, between July 14 and 18, Carlos Brito Dias will teach two workshops – one on Composition and the other on Conducting – as part of the Festival Internacional de Música de Sorbas Almería in Spain.

The composer Daniel Moreira (published by the MIC.PT) has two highlights within his recent artistic activity. The RTP Palco platform has released the complete recording of the world premiere of A Madrugada (2024) for adult choir, children choir, orchestra and electronics, composed on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of April 25. Commissioned by Casa da Música, the work was presented as part of the 2024 celebrations and can currently be viewed online. Additionally, on July 8, the Caleidoscópio Quartet will perform a new version (2.0) of the multimedia performance Vórtice: para o fim de um tempo by the Caleidoscópio Collective, featuring music by Daniel Moreira, Miguel Resende Bastos, and Catarina Sá Ribeiro. The performance, which combines music, light, and dramaturgy, premiered in 2022 and is now returning in a renewed version, following the CD recording set for release in October. Vórtice will be performed at Ponto C in Penafiel as part of the Setentrional Festival.

Diogo Alvim (a composer published by the MIC.PT) opens his installation Solo at Galeria Diferença in Lisbon on July 11. This creation proposes a sensory reflection on sound, space and matter, crossing the languages of performance, sculpture, architecture and sound installation. Solo is a site-responsive work conceived in connection with the architecture and the particularities of its presentation place. The author explains: ‘This project explores the artistic object as a means of articulation with the world. Following on from my previous works, Solo extends the stage into the realm of installation, integrating sculptural, architectural and performative elements’. The work explores the duality of the title, evoking the figure of the soloist in a performative context and referring to the physical ground (solo), where we move and which characterises the human experience of space and body. The floor will occupy a central place in the performance: ‘It’s omnipresent as the basic unit of human life, but also as a place of boundary hiding a subterranean, visceral, subconscious interior.’

Between July 15 and 19, the composer Diogo da Costa Ferreira (published by the MIC.PT) will present his opera Paramos ou Morremos (2021) in Porto. The work proposes a new way of experiencing opera, moving away from the solemnity of the traditional stage and occupying public space through a sensory walk that transforms the city into a setting. Starting from the Cartes Municipal Swimming Pool, the audience is invited to put on headphones and embark on an immersive journey reflecting on sustainability. The musical direction is in the hands of Diogo Costa, and the performance is by the Contratempus Quartet. The synopsis of the opera combines the urgent environmental problem with the innovation of the aesthetic experience: ´Instead of curtains, we have the sky. Instead of chairs, the city pavement. (...) An opera. A sensory walk’. The project is carried out in collaboration with various associations and social centres, such as Associação TODOS and Associação do Porto de Paralisia Cerebral, reinforcing its communitarian and inclusive dimension.

The world premiere of Passiflora, a piece by composer Fátima Fonte (published by MIC.PT), written for the Póvoa de Varzim Contemporary Ensemble, will take place on July 18. The musical direction will be in the hands of Canadian conductor Stanley Dodds, and the work’s presentation will also feature an original video by Adriana Romero. The concert is part of the of the Póvoa de Varzim International Music Festival. The work was commissioned as part of the 18th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim. In the context of this competition, Fátima Fonte presides over the jury, which also involves Ana Seara, Rui Penha and Dimitris Andrikopoulos. The performance of the finalist pieces by the ars ad hoc ensemble will occur on July 16, at the Municipal Auditorium of Póvoa de Varzim. The competition’s winning work will be revealed on this occasion. To promote contemporary music creation, the International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim (CICPV) has established itself as an outstanding initiative on the Portuguese music scene. It honours composers born after a specific date (in this case, after December 1, 1985) and premieres the prize-winning works during the festival.

The two works by Jaime Reis (a composer published by MIC.PT), Sangue Inverso: Hematite and Inverso Sangue: Rútilo, will be premiered by Ensemble DME under the baton of French conductor Jean-Philippe Wurtz on July 25 at the Vianna da Motta Auditorium of ESML – Lisbon School of Music. This concert is part of the Postgraduate Week in Applied Composition at ESML, which will run until July 31. This year marks the final edition of this Postgraduate Programme, designed and coordinated by Jaime Reis and supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan. Over the past three years, this course has brought together composers not only from Portugal but also from countries such as China, Finland, the USA, Canada, Spain, Italy, Chile, and Iran. Additionally, at the beginning of the month, Jaime Reis’s electroacoustic work Fluxus, pas trop haut dans le ciel (2017) will be presented as part of the Rencontres Acousmatiques 2025, an initiative by the CRANE lab (Millery, France), on July 4. Lastly, Jaime Reis has received two Awards for Excellence during the 9th edition of the IPL CGD Scientific Awards and Recognition Awards for Activities with Community Relevance, both granted by the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon.

The acousmatic work by João Castro Pinto (a composer published by the MIC.PT), Circumsphere: to Bounce & Rebounce (2024), is one of the 26 pieces selected within the international call of the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis 2025 festival (Switzerland), which received 274 works from 39 countries. In this context, Circumsphere will be spatialized during the fourth concert of the Forum Wallis Festival 2025 by the MEbU (Münster Earport by UMS’nJIP) Loudspeaker Orchestra on July 5 in Münster/ Goms, Switzerland. Premiered last year in May at the Música Viva Festival (Miso Music Portugal), Circumsphere: to Bounce & Rebounce «is an immersion into the sonic and musical richness of spherical objects (marbles, rubber/ ping pong balls, wooden spheres and styrofoam). The aim was to explore sonically and musically the physical and phenomenological quality evident in the idea of “roundness”, a kind of acousmatic circumnavigation through a cartography of movement», reveals João Castro Pinto Pinto in the programme notes.

Luís Neto da Costa (a composer represented by MIC.PT) has been selected to participate in the VI Symposium Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful, an initiative by the International Ekmelic Music Society, which will take place in Salzburg, Austria, from July 2 to 6. His presentation, titled Microtonality, Rhythm, and Live Electronics in Rust, will be delivered on the first day of the symposium. In August, specifically on the 31st, Luís Neto da Costa will conduct the world premiere of his new work, Iχνηλατήσεις (Tracing), for 13 musicians (a combination of classical instruments and traditional Greek instruments). This performance will take place as part of the TRIETHNES+ Festival in Laimos (Prespes, Greece). The festival, which runs for five days, from August 27 to 31, will be hosted at the Prespa Secondary School – Lyceum (Laimos). With a focus on promoting intercultural exchange and artistic development, the TRIETHNES+ programme aims to inspire and enrich the knowledge and skills of its participants while also creating an open platform for dialogue and innovation.

The work Ascetism (2025) for violin, cello, flute, clarinet and piano by Gerson Batista (a composer published by MIC.PT) is one of the finalists of the 18th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim. The premiere of Ascetism, by the ensemble ars ad hoc, will take place as part of the 47th Póvoa de Varzim International Music Festival, on July 16, at the Póvoa de Varzim Municipal Auditorium. In the context of this concert, not only will the winning work of the competition be revealed, but also the prize awarded by the audience.

The work Grooving On (2014) for saxophone quartet by Lino Guerreiro (a composer published by MIC.PT) will be performed by the Metropolitana Saxophone Ensemble (dir. João Malha) on 7 July as part of the FISP – Palmela International Saxophone Festival. Founded in July 2005, the FISP celebrates in 2025 ‘20 years of a utopia that aims, above all, to promote ideals of equality and solidarity in the context of the development of the saxophone in the artistic, educational, scientific and social spheres.’

The Cloud, an opera without scene for baritone and string quartet by Daniel Davis (a composer published by MIC.PT), was awarded the Platinum Prize in the framework of the Berlioz International Music Competition. The world premiere of The Cloud, by baritone Jonathan Eyers and the Sonnen Quartet, occurred in 2024 in October at the St Pancras Clock Tower in London. The work is set to an original text by English writer Aubrey Lavender, which seeks to highlight contemporary social and political themes. The narrative of The Cloud is based on two overlapping and alternating stories, focusing on the technological revolution while also echoing broader themes.

On July 2, percussionist Jonathan Silva will give a recital at the Calouste Gulbenkian Conservatory of Music in Aveiro (PERCUria 2025 Percussion Week), dedicated to the music of composers residing in Portugal. The concert’s programme, part of the Vridges project supported by the DGArtes, will include two works by composers published by MIC.PT: Paulo Bastos’s Íris-abandono... (2016) and the premiere of Francisco Ribeiro’s Suite em Português (2025). In this context, Jonathan Silva will also premiere two more works at this recital: Hugo Correia’s (des)Motivos (2025) and Lawrence Axelrod’s Abstract Thoughts (2025).

The applications for the 8th edition of the Accordion Composition Prize, an initiative by the Folefest Association, are open until July 18. 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 (for accordion solo or accordion with electronica) must be unedited. The prize’s organisers reserve the right to realise the premieres of the awarded works. The prize’s jury comprises Amílcar Vasques-Dias (composer), Ângela da Ponte (composer) and Paulo Jorge Ferreira (accordionist/ composer and jury president).

With the aim to encourage the creation and diffusion of new acousmatic/ electroacoustic works, Miso Music Portugal promotes and organises the 26th International Electroacoustic Composition Competition – Música Viva 2025. The deadline for the works’ submission is July 31, 2025 (11h59 p.m., Lisbon time) and the results will be announced on October 31, 2025. The presentation of the winning work, diffused via the Miso Music Portugal’s Loudspeaker Orchestra, will occur in December, 2025, in the context of the Short Circuit Festival in Lisbon. The jury of the 26th International Electroacoustic Composition Competition – Música Viva 2025 comprises Hans Tutschku, Manuella Blackburn and Miguel Azguime.

Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 36 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 Music of Research & Invention 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.