In November Igor C. Silva, composer published by the MIC.PT, won the first Prize at the International Electroacoustic and Intermedial Composition Competition eviMus for the work Numb (2015) for baritone saxophone and electronics. The Competition's 1st Edition was organised within the scope of the festival: Saarbrücker Tage für elektroakustische und visuelle Musik in Germany. Additionally, on December 18 and 28 respectively the work Frames #87 (2011) for clarinet, electronics and video by Igor C. Silva will be performed in the context of the Clarmeet.Porto 17 by Victor Pereira and in Guarda in the context of the Electroacoustic Music Days Festival (DME) by the clarinettist Frederic Cardoso.

Pois é is the project by Daniel Schvetz, composer published by the MIC.PT, recently recorded on the CD entitled Canção de vidro, released with the support of the Embassy of Portugal in Brussels and the Camões Institute. Pois é is a project based on texts by various Portuguese poets - Mário Quintana, Natália Correia, Fernando Pessoa, Jorge de Sena, Álvaro de Campos - with original music and two poems by Daniel Schvetz, as well as with the interpretations by Sara Belo (voice) and the composer on piano. In this project “the sung, spoken, written and read voice is a privileged vehicle not only for the word, but also for the sound and emotion - it’s a sonic symbol representing everything human, existing in the universe”.

The work Six Portraits of Pain (2005) for cello and ensemble by António Pinho Vargas, composer published by the MIC.PT, makes part of the concert programme, which will be performed by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, under the baton of Pedro Amaral, on December 1 and 2 at the Thalia Theatre in Lisbon; the soloist part in António Pinho Vargas’ work will be performed by the cellist Pavel Gomziakov. This concert programme entitled Retratos da Dos (Portraits of Pain) also includes Anton Bruckner’s Symphony no. 1. Six Portraits of Pain is inspired in phrases by different writers and philosophers in order to develop a “musical reflection” on suffering connected with creation and existence.

The work ff (Frozen Fred...) from 2012 for piano, composed by João Pedro Oliveira. is included in the new project and CD Vertentes by the Brazilian pianist Ana Cláudia de Assis. Its release will take place during two performances at the beginning of this month - on December 1 at the Artistic Education Foundation (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), and on December 5 at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brasil). Another work by this composer published by the MIC.PT - Vox Sum Vitae (2010) for vibraphone and electronics - will be presented on December 9 by the Verdant Vibes Ensemble in the context of the event: Verdant Vibes Winter Warmer in Providence (the USA).

Works by four Portuguese composers published by the MIC.PT will be presented in the context of the performances of the Sound Told Fairy Tales project, which will be taking place between December 5 and 7 at the Teatro da Rainha in Caldas da Rainha (Portugal). The works are: A Ilha from 2017 (world premiere) with music by Rui Penha and story by João Gomes de Abreu and Yara Kono, O Leão e o Rato from 2017 (world premiere) with music by Miguel Azguime and story by Jean de La Fontaine, A Música do Silêncio Mágico from 2006 with music by António Ferreira, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story King’s New Clothes adapted by Ágata Mandillo, and Uma mesa é uma mesa.... Será? from 2008 with music by José Luís Ferreira and story by Isabel Minhós Martins. This programme also includes the piece Plop! (2006) with music by Isabel Pires and a traditional Tibetan tale adapted by Ana Mandillo. Sound Told Fairy Tales is a Miso Music Portugal’s project for children with concept and sound diffusion realised by Paula Azguime, artistic direction and computer assistance by Miguel Azguime, technology provided by Miso Studio; as well as with Ana Baptista and Francisco Sales as narrators.

Gonçalo Gato, composer published by the MIC.PT, will be in 2018 Young Composer in Residence at Casa da Música (Porto). According to the programme presented by this music institution on November 17, next year Austria will be its main theme, with Georg Friedrich Haas as Composer in Residence. Gonçalo Gato was born in 1979 in Lisbon. As composer he had the opportunity to work with some of the most famous ensembles in the world, such as: the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Recherche, Chroma Ensemble or the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble. In the field of music research his interests are focused on computer assisted composition. He has recently finished his doctoral degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the supervision of Julian Anderson.

The performance of the multimedia opera Salt Itinerary (2006/03) by Miguel Azguime will take place on December 3 at the Cricoteka - Centre for the Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor in Cracow (Poland). With music and texts composed by this composer published by the MIC.PT, as well as staging and video composition by Paula Azguime, the Salt Itinerary is a one man show by the Miso Ensemble - performed by Miguel Azguime, with Paula Azguime responsible for sound projection and live electronics and Perseu Mandillo for live video. Salt Itinerary is a paradigm for an alliance between creativity, technology and innovation in performing arts, joining tradition and contemporaneity, theatre, music and image. It's a reflection on creation and madness, revolving around language as well as words as meaning and words as sound.

With the work Soffiando (2017) Nuno Figueiredo has won the 1st Prize (B Category) at the 3rd International GMCL/Jorge Peixinho Composition Competition. In 2014 this composer published by the MIC.PT received the 1st Prize in the framework of the same Competition for the work Memorandum for understanding (2014). This year the Competition’s jury was constituted by Ivan Fedele, Gerhard Stabler, Pedro Pinto Figueiredo, Jorge Sá Machado; and three composers published by the MIC.PT: the late Clotilde Rosa, João Madureira and Jaime Reis. The other winners of the 3rd GMCL/Jorge Peixinho Competition are: Geovanni Bonato (Italy) - 1st Prize in the A Category; Miguel Villanueva Hering (Spain) - 2nd Prize in the A Category; Dongryul Lee (South Korea) - 2nd Prize in the B Category. The jury also awarded Sakiko Kosaka (Japan) with a Honourable Mention.

The work Inverso Sangue: Cinábrio (2017) for violin, viola and cello by Jaime Reis, composer published by the MIC.PT, will be premiered on December 16 in Kiev (Art Ukraine Gallery), in the context of the concert by the members of the International Ensemble Modern Academy, whose programme will also include pieces by Giacinto Scelsi, Matthias Pintscher, Arnold Schoenberg and Helmut Lachenmann. From this date and until December 22, at the Ukrainian capital Jaime Reis - together with the Belgian composer Stefan Prins - will also realise composition master classes organised by the Kyiv Contemporary Music Days festival and directed to composers of all ages and nationalities. The curse’s participants will be developing their new works, which will subsequently be premiered at the event’s final concert on December 22.

Music composed by four Portuguese composers published by the MIC.PT is included in the programme of the Electroacoustic Music Days Festival (DME), which will be taking place between December 27 and 30 in Seia (Portugal). It is the 36th edition of the DME Festival taking place in the Serra da Estrela region and the 56th of all the editions organised since the first event in 2003 in Cracow (Poland). The aforementioned composers are: João Pedro Oliveira (various pieces, including L’accordéon du diable), Igor C. Silva (Frames #87), Filipe Lopes (Do Desenho e do Som #1) and Luís Antunes Pena (The Hunter). The DME #56 Festival’s programme also includes a concert of purely electroacoustic music with works by composers selected by the MUSLAB festival; a performance of electroacoustic pieces by young composers from different countries; as well as works by various other Portuguese contemporary composers: Bruno Ferreira, Diogo Novo Carvalho (world premiere of Imagem I), Carlos Brito Dias and João Pedro Coimbra. The performers participating in the DME #56 Festival are: Ensemble DME, Frederic Cardoso (clarinet), Igor C. Silva (electronics), Eva Zöllner (accordion), Heather Roche (clarinet) and Justine Sedky (flute), among others. The DME Festival’s artistic director is Jaime Reis, composer published by the MIC.PT.

Ricardo Matosinhos, composer published by the MIC.PT, is author of the Portuguese translation of the new version of the EarMaster Software. This programme is dedicated to ear training and music sight-reading, which allows to develop 14 different types of activity: compare, identify and intone intervals; identify chords, chord inversions, harmonic progressions and scales; sight-read rhythms, imitate them, do rhythmic dictations and find errors in a given rhythm; intone and imitate sound and melodies as well as do melodic dictations. The software possesses a traditional General and a Jazz Course, presents a new Course for Beginners directed to the ones’ not having any musical knowledge and practice, and offers a new Singing Course. EarMaster also has an option to create personalised activities, that is to identify intervals up to 3 octaves or do a dictation or intonation in a specific scale, choosing rhythmic values, tonalities, among many other music parameters.

Um Natal Português (Portuguese Christmas) based on traditional melodies, for choir and orchestra, is a work and performance composed of four distinct “parts” written by various Portuguese contemporary composers, including Fernando C. Lapa, composer published by the MIC.PT. The other authors are: Carlos Azevedo, Fernando Valente e Eugénio Amorim. This concert, which includes the participation of Daniela Matos (soprano), the Orfeão de Leiria Choir and Chamber Choir, the Leiria Symphony Orchestra and Nuno Almeida (musical direction), will take place on December 1 at the Convento da Portela (Franciscanos) Church in Leiria (Portugal). Another piece by Fernando C. Lapa, das margens da luz (2009), will be presented on December 19 by Ricardo Alves (clarinet) and Artur Pereira (piano) at the Large Auditorium of the Music Conservatoire in Porto. This recital, making part of the general programme of the Conservatoire’s Centenary, also includes a piece by Alexandre Delgado (Langará), among other works.

MUTABILIS is an imersível installation and performance inspired in the flower of Hibiscus mutabilis, also known as “confederate rose”. In the morning this flower blooms with pure white, passing through intense and vivid pink, becoming violet in the following days. With choreography and costume design by Paula Pinto; sonic creation and programming by António de Sousa Dias, composer published by the MIC.PT; video creation and video-mapping by Daniel Rondulha; and sound projection by José Luís Ferreira, composer published by the MIC.PT; the installation/performance MUTABILIS, which will be presented between December 20 and 22 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon in the context of the InShadow Festival, proposes a path, where the coexistence of different spaces and time dimensions reveals the change as a unique constant in life.

Clotilde Rosa (1930-2017), composer, harpist and professor, passed away on November 24, 2017 at the age of 87. "Her creative irruption on the Portuguese musical scene is simultaneously atypical and symptomatic" - wrote Manuel Pedro Ferreira on the pages of his book “Dez Compositores Portugueses” (2007, Lisbon). Clotilde Rosa, together with Jorge Peixinho, was one of the first to bring to Portugal the experience of the famous Darmstadt Summer Courses. She awakened for composition around the age of forty five through the participation, as performer, in the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group, becoming one of the most important personalities regarding the creation and divulgation of contemporary music - she was "the Mum" for many Portuguese contemporary composers. Clotilde Rosa's catalogue includes around 110 titles (the majority of them being published by MIC.PT): chamber music works, orchestral music, an opera, a ballet and also didactic pieces; various of them still awaiting their premiere performances. In her musical language, exercising a posture of creative freedom Clotilde Rosa did not obey any established code, using freely a symbiosis of different aesthetics – from serialism to repetitive minimalism present in works with aleatoric fragments. It was the dramatic, emotional and poetical content that Clotilde Rosa always valued most in music creation.