Composers

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Details as performer
 Born in Mesão Frio in 1961. Improviser, composer and video artist. A self-taught musician, he studied guitar with José Pina at the Duarte Costa Music School from 1974 to 1976, in Oporto. In 1971 he began his professional activity, joining bands performing “cover versions” of pop and rock music and founding rock bands to perform original music. In 1976 and 1977, he was a member of King Fisher’s Band and, two years later, founded GNR with Alexandre Soares. He gave various concerts with this band, notably in the last Festival of Vilar de Mouros in 1982. In the same year, he met Jorge Lima Barreto, whose influence was a deciding factor in his change of musical direction. Together they formed a group, Telectu, one of the first in Portugal to concentrate on improvised electronic music. Recently he has composed for theatre, dance and cinema. Assuming various functions in different artistic undertakings, his work has been distinguished by his approach to, and crossing of, different areas of music. His career is also paradigmatic of a musician who, beginning his career in pop music, has moved ever close to the world of “classical” music. “In a certain sense, I feel that there exists, and it is quite strong, a connection, or at least an interaction, between improvisation and composition, a kind of ping-pong between the two things. (...) In composition, one has always to know when it is finished, or when it’s still possible to correct it (...), even if one composes in real time. (...) In improvisation, I think that the best that comes from composition is the rationality of somebody improvising as though he were composing. And, on the other hand, in composition, all those intuitive, spontaneous liberties, and things which arise from contact with instruments and improvisation, have been very useful to me in my work as a composer.” Vítor Rua, June 2003 IN FOCUS (May 2011)