A new interview with the accordionist, teacher and composer Paulo Jorge Ferreira is avail­able in the MIC. PT In Focus section throughout September.
       Born in 1966, Paulo Jorge Ferreira has given recitals and concerts in Austria, Belgium, China, Germany, France, Hungary, Italy, Macau, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands, having performed with highly acclaimed Portuguese and international musi­cians. Throughout his career, he has taken part in recording sessions, as well as in radio and television programmes.
       In his compositional approach, Paulo Jorge Ferreira does not conform to any particular style or aesthetic trend in music, and has received commissions from some of Portugal’s most highly regarded soloists, chamber ensembles and music festivals. Several of his works have been performed abroad.
       Paulo Jorge Ferreira is a lecturer in Accordion and Chamber Music at the National Conservatoire’s School of Music in Lisbon. A leading figure in the artistic de­vel­opment of the accordion and its new repertoire in Portugal, he is the artistic director of the Folefest Festival and Competition, as well as president of the respective association.

In September, Amílcar Vasques-Dias will be the featured composer at the Q.Festival–Portuguese Music, an initiative by Teresa Pinto (Q.Art Mag­azine + Events). On the 13th, the Amsterdam De Engelse Kerk will host pianist Inês Filipe, who will perform the cycle Lume de Chão – tecido de memórias e afectos (2004) by the composer (published by MIC.PT), and works by Constança Capdeville and Fernando Lopes-Graça. Then, on the 27th, Amílcar Vasques-Dias will take the Q.Festival stage in the Amstelkerk, Amsterdam, to present a programme entitled Memória e Identidade, playing the piano and accompanied by the singer Cláudia Pereira Pinto. ‘This concert,’ reveals the composer, ‘not only reflects my Dutch experiences be­tween 1974 and 1988, but also my life in Portugal. By incor­porating songs that evoke the Alentejo and Portuguese po­ets, the value of Portuguese culture and the Portuguese lan­guage is reaffirmed, within a convergence of experiences and inspirations that transcend borders’.

The electroacoustic work La Gloire du Superflu (2025), by the composer António Ferreira (published by MIC.PT), will be pres­ented as part of the 44th General Assembly of the International Confederation of Elec­troacoustic Music (CIME–ICEM), which will take place on Sep­tember 10 and 11 at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurich, Switzerland. CIME–ICEM, of which Miso Music Por­tugal is the Portuguese Federation, was founded in 1981 in Bourges (France) on the initiative of Christian Clozier. It is a non-profit organisation, a partner of UNESCO and a member of the International Music Council (IMC), dedicated to sup­porting, promoting and developing electroacoustic music worldwide. The work La Gloire du Superflu, which premiered on March 14 at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, was created with the primary goal of exploring the various possibilities for im­mersive spatialisation offered by the Miso Music Portugal Loudspeaker Orchestra. The piece utilises Ambisonics tech­nology for the design and realisation of the sound space.

António Pinho Vargas will be the composer-in-res­idence at the Hortênsia Music – Erupção Musical festival, which will take place between September 1 and 10 in Angra do Heroísmo, in the Azores. Several works by this composer (published by MIC.PT) will be performed as part of the festival, and António Pinho Vargas will also give a lecture-recital at the Luís da Silva Ribeiro Public Library. On September 5, the work Dissolves me into geometrics, cre­ated by António Pinho Vargas in 2025, will be performed at the 2026 Itinerant Percussion Festival at Casa da Música in Porto. This concert will feature Mário Teixeira (music direc­tion) and the percussionists: João Dias, André Dias, Miquel Bernat, Vasco Ramalho, Marco Fernandes, Tomás Moital and João Simões. Then, at the end of the month, António Pinho Vargas’ work Nocturno/Diurno, originally composed for string sextet in 1994 and later adapted for string ensemble, will be per­formed by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Neves, on September 27 at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon.

The installation Lugares Invisíveis (Invisible Places), created by the composer Carlos Caires (published by MIC.PT), will be presented as part of the Festival Jovens Músicos 2026 (2026 Young Musicians Festival), from September 15, at the Lisboa Incomum venue. Lugares Invisíveis: Festival Jovens Músicos 2026 is an interactive, multimedia installation that invites participants to activate and manipulate an immersive sound system through hand movements. It is a creation that originated as part of the Culture and Sustainability 2020 Symposium, an initiative of the DME Project. The installation Lugares Invisíveis has previously been presented in various venues and contexts, notably at the Punto y Raya Festival, the Monstra Festival, the Música em São Roque Festival and the National Mu­seum of Music in Mafra. The iteration of this interactive in­stallation, specially prepared and developed for the Festival Jovens Músicos 2026, features updated sound content and a new visual interface, designed especially for the framework of this event.

The piece Svart Hål (2019), by the composer Cláudio de Pina (published by MIC.PT) has been selected for broadcast on Radio­phrenia (Glasgow, Scot­land) on September 6, from 10h30 pm. The event, entitled The Light at the End of the Dial, will take place between September 5 and 20, with broadcasts (87.9 FM) in: Glasgow, Brighton & Hove, Cambridge, Greater London, Norwich, King’s Lynn and Peterborough. The event will also be broad­cast via DAB+ in digital radio format and rebroadcast by Radio Tsonami (Chile). On September 19, at the NOVA Uni­versity – Colégio Almada Negreiros, in Lisbon, Cláudio de Pina will also present his recent album Outras Flores de Música (2026), released by Miso Records, as part of the academic initiative IN2PAST, on the panel Memories, the Past and the Construction of Knowledge.

In September, two works by the composer Constança Capdeville (published by MIC.PT) will be performed in the Netherlands and in Portugal. The first, entitled Visions d’Enfant (1958–1959) and written for piano, will form part of the recital that pianist Inês Filipe will give as part of the Q.Festival–Portuguese Music on the 13th at De Engelse Kerk in Amsterdam. The second work, Concertino (1965) for string quartet, will be performed by the Miso String Quartet — comprising Pedro Lopes (violin), César Nogueira (violin), Joana Cipriano (viola) and Luís André Ferreira (cello) — on the 22nd at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. The person respon­sible for the layout and musical revision of the score for Concertino is the composer António de Sousa Dias (pub­lished by MIC.PT). It will shortly be included in the catalogue of scores published by MIC.PT.

With music by Fernando C. Lapa (a composer pub­lished by MIC.PT) and li­bretto and staging by António Durães, the opera Papa est Mort – António Feijó, o poeta que morreu de amor (2026) will be performed on September 6 at the Theatro Circo in Braga, as part of Noite Branca. The opera, which comprises twelve scenes and celebrates the exceptional figure of the diplomat and Parnassian poet António Feijó, premiered last March at the Teatro Diogo Bernardes, bringing the celebrations marking the 900th anniversary of the Charter of Ponte de Lima to a close. The performance of the work at the Noite Bran­ca de Braga festival — inspired by Paris’s Nuit Blanche and started in 2012 to revitalise the city’s historic centre — will feature soprano Sara Braga Simões, tenors Marco Alves dos Santos and Leonel Pinheiro (in a double cast) and baritone Tiago Matos. The artists will be accompanied by the Toy Ensemble, conducted by José Eduardo Gomes.

From September 17 to 20, the Teatro Variedades in Lisbon will host the opera Pygmalion (2025), with music by Gerson Batista (a composer published by MIC.PT), a libretto by Tiago Schwäbl Martins, and direction and visual design by João Vieira Fino. This opera, which transposes the classical myth into a post-apocalyptic future, blends operatic language with electronic and electroacoustic music and features a visually striking set design. This is the first production by Plataforma Cultural, a non-profit cultural association dedicated to contemporary creation. In the lead­ing roles, the countertenor António Lourenço Menezes will perform as Pygmalion, and the soprano Sara Afonso will in­terpret Mannequin. The singers will be accompanied by the Pygmalion Effect Ensemble and the Arsis Vocal Group, com­prising around 30 choristers. The musical direc­tion is in the hands of Gonçalo Santos. Pygmalion was com­missioned by the Informal Opera Festival (FIO).

Two pieces by the com­poser Hugo Vasco Reis (published by MIC.PT) — Micro Images for Piano (2017) and Micro Images for Recorders and Pia­noforte (2026) —, are included in the programme for the Borealis Ensemble’s Brazilian tour, entitled Sarabanda Atlântica, which, until September 8, will visit locations such as Uberlândia, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Manaus. In this project, the Borealis Ensemble — comprising António Carrilho (recorder) and Helena Marinho (piano) — invites the audience to reflect on the culture shared by Portugal and Brazil, presenting a selection of works by composers from both countries. ‘In my practice’, said Hugo Vasco Reis in his interview with MIC.PT in November 2019, ‘the rational and emotional aspects are always present, as is the inner need to create, to say something. If I ever cease to feel this need, I’ll take a break or switch to a different activity. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be honest in my creative process’.

The work for percussion septet, Configurations du poète (2023), written by the composer Isabel Soveral (published by MIC.PT) in response to a commission from the Arte no Tempo association, will be performed on September 5 at Casa da Música in Porto, as part of another special edition of the Festival Itinerante de Percussão. The concert programme, conducted by Mário Teixeira and per­formed by the percussionists João Dias, André Dias, Miquel Bernat, Vasco Ramalho, Marco Fernandes, Tomás Moital and João Simões, will also include works by António Pinho Vargas, João Moreira and Luís Antunes Pena. The distin­guishing feature of Isabel Soveral’s music, at both the macro and micro levels, is morphosis — that is, the constant trans­formation from one piece to the next. Her music, strongly influenced by modernism, also highlights a ‘visual’ compo­nent, reflected in the way she works with ‘sound fabrics’ — to use her own words.

During the first fortnight of September, the composer Jaime Reis (published by MIC.PT) will continue his tour of Mexico, with visits to the Universidad de las Artes de Yucatán, the Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, in Mexico City. At these institutions, he will hold masterclasses and workshops on composition, a concert-lecture and a conference. At the start of the month, on Sep­tember 1, his 2026 work deformação.matéria., for four am­plified instruments — flute, saxophone, accordion and per­cussion — will be performed by the Ensemble Orbis, con­ducted by Demian Rudel Rey. The concert will take place at the Salle Paul Garcin in Lyon, France. It is part of the O Can­to das Sementes project, an initiative of DME Project, with the programme also featuring works by Ana Maria Oancea, Bruna Santander, Demian Rudel Rey, Mariana Vieira, Nuno d’Eça and Simon Louche. Finally, at the end of September, between the 24th and the 27th, Jaime Reis will be working with the JOP – Portuguese Youth Orchestra, as part of the JOP Contemporânea programme.

This month, three works by Mariana Vieira (a composer published by MIC.PT) will be performed in France, Swit­zerland and Portugal. The first, residual objects #2 (2026), for flute, saxophone, accordion, percussion and elec­tronics, will form part of the programme for the Ensemble Orbis concert, as part of the O Canto das Sementes initiative (DME Project), which will take place at the Salle Paul Garcin in Lyon. The second piece, Meditação sobre a pai­sagem do Alentejo (2025), will be performed during the 44th General Assembly of the International Confederation of Electroacous­tic Music (CIME–ICEM), which will take place on the 10th and 11th at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Zurich, Swit­zerland. Finally, the work Rasgar o tempo (2026), for sopra­no, cello and electronics, together with Philippe Manoury’s piece En Echo (1996), form part of the perfor­mance O Corpo Que Canta, featuring Nataša Šibalić (artistic direction/voice), Maria Nabeiro (cello), Rafaela Nunes and Sara Gomes (dan­cers), Nélia Pinheiro (choreography), Nuno Mika (projec­tions) and Anabela Gaspar (lighting). The per­formance will occur on September 27 at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon.

The world premiere of the work Flowing Dragon (2026), for two accordions, by the composer Miguel Azguime (published by MIC.PT), will take place on September 11 at the Estação das Artes in Santa Clara-a-Velha/Sabóia, in the municipality of Odemira. This concert, performed by Maxim Nedobezhkin and Sérgio Gladkyy — the Flowing Reeds Duo who recently won first prize in the 2026 Young Musicians’ Award in the Chamber Music cat­egory (higher level) — forms part of the Music Through Time series, which also features music by Dmitri Shostakovich, Ignacy Zalewski and Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition, on September 22, at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, the Miso String Quartet — Pedro Lopes (violin), César Nogueira (violin), Joana Cipriano (viola) and Luís André Ferreira (cello) — will perform another work by Miguel Azguime: the string quartet Le Le Feu Qui Dort, composed in 2008.

The work Pop-up (2015), for recorder and pianoforte, by Sara Carvalho (a com­poser published by MIC.PT) forms part of the pro­gramme for the Borealis Ensemble’s Brazilian tour, which runs until September 8 un­der the theme Sarabanda Atlântica. Founded by the flau­tist António Carrilho and the pianist Helena Marinho, the ensem­ble is renowned for its work in promoting music for historical and modern instruments, as well as for its involve­ment in projects dedicated to contemporary musical creation. Sara­banda Atlântica explores, through music, the shared his­tory of Portugal and Brazil. In September, the project will visit Uberlândia, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Manaus, presenting works by Portuguese and Brazilian composers, namely António Chagas Rosa and Hugo Vasco Reis (published by MIC.PT), as well as Almeida Prado, Catarina Domenici, Fernando Mattos, Ivan Moody and Jônatas Manzolli.

In August, a new page dedicated to the composer João Ricardo was launched on MIC.PT. Born in 1993, João Ricardo is currently a PhD student under the supervision of Pedro Amaral and has received guidance at workshops and masterclasses led by composers such as Carlos Marecos, Jessie Marino, Sara Carvalho and Alastair White. His operatic works, which have won several international awards, are regularly performed by Inestética, Réptil and Quarteto Contratempus. His chamber music is featured on albums such as Novos Caminhos II (OCCO), Oboé e Piano em Português, Vol. 2 (David Costa and Pedro Ferro Duo · 9 Musas) and Motirõ (Amanda Carpenedo). His academic writings have been included in publications such as Paisagens Sonoras em Expansão (Urutau) and New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media (Bloomsbury Publishing).

On September 25, in Lisbon, the team from the Portuguese Music Research and Information Centre (MIC.PT) will take part in the European Researchers’ Night 2026 (NEI’26) with the activity ‘Voices in Network’. Digital Preservation of Contemporary Portuguese Music. In the Portuguese capital, the NEI will take place at the National Museum of Natural History and Science between 5h00 pm and midnight. In this context, various researchers will be holding activities with the public on the projects in which they are involved, addressing emerging themes in science, such as climate change, sustainability and inclusion. The main aim of the initiative is to give a voice to communities and to bring researchers and science closer to civil society. The idea is not merely to raise aware­ness in a passive, one-way manner, but rather to create opportunities to share concerns and expectations regarding how science can promote sustainable development. The NEI’26 will also take place in the cities of Braga and Évora.

Last July, the New Music Review Lounge published one new article by the journalist and musicologist Pedro Boléo entitled A Bridge Halfway There. The re­view in question discusses the work Pons Varolii, by the composer and pianist Simão Costa, which draws on a ‘fascination’ with the 25 de Abril Bridge in Lisbon. Pons Varolii premiered at the São Luiz Municipal Theatre in Lisbon, performed by Simão Costa himself and the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, con­ducted by Pedro Neves. The work also features a video creation by Mário Melo Costa.

The results of the 2nd Álvaro García de Zúñiga – Casa de Mateus – Sond’Ar-te International Lied Composition Competition were announced in August. The jury, comprising the composers Philippe Leroux and Miguel Azguime, decided to award first prize to the work Do what you’re told (2026), for soprano and cello, by the composer Fábio Chicotio, born in 1991. The world pre­miere of the work, which uses the text Remain Calm by Álvaro García de Zúñiga, will take place on December 19 at the Casa de Mateus Foundation in Vila Real, featuring soprano Camila Mandillo and cellist Luís André Ferreira — soloists of the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble.

The 2026 edition of the Young Musicians’ Festival will take place from September 15 to 17 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, and this year also at the Lisboa Incomum venue, which will host Carlos Caires’ interactive installation Lugares Invisíveis from September 15. The awards ceremony will take place on the same day in Auditorium 3 of the Gulbenkian Foundation. As is customary at the Young Musicians’ Festival, over the course of the three days the festival will feature concerts with the award-winning musicians from the various categories of the 2026 Young Musicians’ Award, including the Henrique Pinto Quartet, the KerberosTrio EPME, the Flowing Reeds Duo, as well as the soloists: Gonçalo Rebelo (double bass), Dinis Cabrita (flute), Vasco Grãos (guitar), Miguel Traquina (percussion) and Bernardo Ferreira (cello). At the end of the soloists’ concert, with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Marc Burfin, on the 17th, the 2026 Young Musician of the Year will be announced; they will represent Portugal in the next Eurovision Young Musicians competition. Among the various initiatives of the Young Musicians Festival 2026, the programme also features: on the 15th — a concert by the SAMP Soloists ensemble, conducted by Alberto Roque, with a wind ensemble programme entitled Donaueschinger Musiktage 1926; on the 16th — a concert by violist Teresa Macedo Ferreira, winner of the 2025 Maestro Silva Pereira/Young Musician of the Year Award, accom­panied by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, conducted by Pedro Neves; and on the 17th, a concert in honour of Maria Teresa de Macedo, honorary president of the Young Musicians Award, to mark her 100th birthday.

The Call for Papers is now open for the 4th Meeting on Music, Technology and Research, an initiative of MIC.PT curated by composer Isabel Soveral, which will occur on December 11 at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. 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 critical thinking. The 4th MMTR will focus on practices of spatialisation, electroacoustics and sound diffusion via loudspeaker systems, and will be held in conjunction with the Listening Spaces series, dedicated to electroacoustic music and the work of the Miso Music Portugal Loud­speaker Orchestra. The Call is open until September 11, 2026.

The Portuguese Sym­phonic Band promotes the International Composition Competition with the aim of stimulating the cre­ation of original repertoire for bands. Open to composers of all na­tionalities aged up to 40 (as of December 31, 2026), the competition sees musical composition as a space for artistic dialogue often inspired by other areas. In the 2026 edition, the BSP proposes as its theme Portugal’s acces­sion to the European Union. Partic­ipants are challenged to create an original work that estab­lishes an artistic and conceptual relationship with the pro­posed theme. The jury’s decision on the competition results will be made after the public premiere of the finalists’ works, which will occur at a concert by the Por­tuguese Symphonic Band in November, in Porto. Com­petition entries must be submitted by September 20, 2026.

In March, the MIC.PT published on its YouTube Channel one new In the 1st Person Interview (in Portuguese) with the composer João Pedro Oliveira. The musicologist and journalist Pedro Boléo conducted this interview recorded in 2024, in Lisbon, at O’culto da Ajuda.
Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 38 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 Invention and Research radio broadcasts, produced by the MIC.PT and Miso Music Portugal for the RTP 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 over 20 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.