Do not fit (2018) for violin and piano, is a new work by Paulo Bastos – com-poser published by the MIC.PT – dedicated to the Doppio Ensemble (Evandra de Brito Gonçalves e Ana Queirós). It will be pre-miered by the duo on December 1 at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris. The programme of this concert also includes pieces by Georg Friedrich Haendel, Alfred Schittke, Jules Massenet and Sergei Prokofiev. Another work by Paulo Bastos, adsum (2004) for piano four hands, will be presented at the Casa de Portugal – André de Gouveia (Cité internationale universitaire de Paris). The pro-gramme of this concert by the Kla-Vier Duo (Patrícia Ventura e Sónia Amaral) also includes works by Sofia Sousa Rocha, Fernando C. Lapa, Emmanuel Hieaux, Francis Poulenc and Maurice Ravel. A great part of Paulo Bastos’ production is focused on chamber music and music for children and youth, including a significant number of pieces for orchestra, solo instruments and electronics.

The presentation of the works for two actors and vocal / instrumental quin-tet, Auto da Barca do Inferno and Auto da Barca do Purgatório (2018), based on the texts of Gil Vicente, with the music by Fernando C. Lapa, staging by Sara Barros Leitão and performance by João Castro, Teresa Arcanjo and the Toy Ensemble, will take place on December 7, at the Virtuosi XXI Festival (Santa Isabel Theatre in Recife, Brazil). Another work by this composer published by the MIC.PT – Storyboard (2004) for four hand piano – will be performed by the Kla-Vier Duo at the Casa de Portugal – André de Gouveia in Paris. Additionally, the version for chamber choir, clarinet, string quartet and piano of the work Canções de amor e de neblina by Fernando C. Lapa, with the poetry by Maria Helena Vieira, will be premiered under the direction of Brian MacKay at the CriaSons 2018/19 Festival Tendencies in Portuguese Contemporary Chamber Music, on December 10 at the Foz Palace in Lisbon.

Ex machina colores (2018) is a new work for orchestra by Gonçalo Gato – composer published by the MIC.PT – which will be premiered by the Porto Symphony Orchestra Casa da Música conducted by Baldur Brönnimann, on December 9 at the Sala Suggia of the Casa da Música in Porto. “The title of this work alludes to the process of creating harmony through computer programming. Ex machina colores is dedicated to the composer Luís Tinoco” – says Gonçalo Gato, who in 2018 is Casa da Música's Young Composer-in-Residence. Pieces by two other composers create the programme of this concert, which also includes the participation of the American violinist Miranda Cuckson: the Portuguese premiere of the Concerto for violin and orchestra by Georg Friedrich Haas (commission by the Casa da Música, Suntory Hall Tokyo and Staatstheater Stuttgart), and the Symphony no. 3 by Anton Bruckner. The event will be preceded with a pre-concert talk by Gonçalo Gato at the Cibermúsica (Casa da Música).

Nunguém & Todo-o-Mundo, a lyrical and touristic farce around Gil Vicente (2018), is an ope-ra with music by Daniel Moreira – composer pub-lished by the MIC.PT – and libreto by Edward Luiz Ayres d'Abreu. Its premiere performances will take place on De-cember 8 (open rehearsal) and 9 (concert), at the Helena Sá e Costa Theatre in Porto. The work will be performed by João Terleira (tenor), Teresa Nunes (soprano), the Choir of the Music Conservatoire in Porto and the MPMP Ensemble (clarinet, cello, piano, Portuguese guitar, accordion and electronics), under the direction of Jan Wierzba. In the programme note the creators of the opera reveal that “this project offers an opera performance based on the texts by Gil Vicente and travel literature from the 16th century until the present, and a humorous reflection on the virtues and problems of tourism nowadays. What can we learn from the outsiders who used to visit the Portuguese cities centuries ago? What similarities and diferences can be associated with our present reality?"

The new work for orches-tra by António Pinho Vargas – Memorial (2018) – will be premiered on December 15 by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra conducted by Jonas Alber, at a concert entitled Saramago, Nobel 1998: Memorial, organized to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Nobel Prize attribution to José Saramago. “My admiration for José Saramago has no limits. When he died I was struck by
a strange sadness and the thought that «I had lived in the time of Saramago». Or else, for me he wasn’t only himself. He was more than that. He was a time” – wrote António Pinho Vargas, composer published by the MIC.PT, on the pages of the Público journal (June 2010), only some days after the writer’s disappearance. To complement the pre-miere of Memorial, the concert’s programme also includes
a version for string orchestra of the String Quartet op. 110 by Dmitri Shostakovich (1960).

The work by Sofia Sousa Rocha for four hand piano Por um dia igual (2014), will be presented on De-cember 8 at the Casa de Portugal – André de Gouveia in Paris. The programme of this concert by the Kla-Vier Duo (Patrícia Ventura e Sónia Amaral) will also include works by Paulo Bastos and Fernando C. Lapa – composers published by the MIC.PT; as well as Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc and Emmanuel Hieaux. “In my case, the act of writing a piece implies re-flection – I idealize the work, still without having a precise notion of how it can be composed. The composition process is dynamic and, although I have a tendency to think that I begin with an embryo-idea for the music I write, I know that this gesture is a consequence of a reflection that starts with a question: what do I want to hear?” – says Sofia Sousa Rocha, composer published by the MIC.PT, in the MIC.PT Interview from December 2015.

Lysozyme Synthesis (2003) and Bartolomeu,
o voador (2017-18; ex-cerpt), are the two pieces for piano and piano with electronics by Jaime Reis, included in the repertoire of the International Interpretation Competition, whose final will be taking place on December 2 at the Lisboa Incomum Space. Organized by the Associa-tion EMSCAN (electroacoustic music sound courses alumni network), the Lisboa Incomum, in collaboration with the CulturXis, this initiative is the 1st edition of an International Competition dedicated to the performance of contemporary music, and celebrating the music of Jaime Reis, composer published by the MIC.PT. The aim of this project is to help to promote and to support both contemporary music crea-tion and artistic development of new performers. Another Jaime Reis’ work – Fluxus, Drag (2015) – is included in the programme of the concerts by the Duo Contracello, taking place on December 7, 14, 18 in Portugal and Spain.

8 Instantes para quarteto de cordas, música para um palácio (2018) is a new work commissioned by the MPMP to Carlos Marecos – composer published by the MIC.PT – which will be premiered on De-cember 16 at the Seteais Palace in Sintra in the context of the Concert Season of the MPMP (Movimento Patrimonial pela Música Portuguesa). “I think that it’s interesting that music is capable of making the listener think and raising new questions and, in this sense, of provoking emotions and triggering sentiments. For me it’s essential that an emo-tion is involved in the «triangle» – composer, performer and listener. In concert an emotional and artistic experience isn’t always achievable, but when one manages to do it, the moment is «magical»” – says Carlos Marecos in the MIC.PT interview from 2013. The concert in Sitntra, performed by the MPMP Ensemble, also includes works by Jorge Croner de Vasconcellos, Joly Braga Santos and Ruy Coelho.

With the work Lisbon Revisited (4th movement of the cycle O Abismo e o Silêncio) commissioned by the Lisbon Contem-porary Music Group, João Pedro Oliveira has won the 1st Award at the Alvarez Chamber Orchestra Competition (the UK). This composer published by the MIC.PT is also one of the laureates of the Ibermúsicas Prize, in the context of which he will create a new acoustic work for the Laboratorio de Fenomenologia Corporal y Experiencia Musical (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile). This month João Pedro Oliveira's work Dark Energy (2018) will be performed by the Contracello Duo on December 7, 14 and 18 (Castelo Branco, Lisboa and Madrid); on December 10 the video-music Tesseract (2017) will be presented at the XXV Punto de Encuentro Festival in Granada; on December 11, Enigma (2018) will be performed at the International Contemporary Piano Meeting (University of Évora); and on December 30, the work Pulsar will be premiered at the 1st Itinerant Percussion Festival (Aveiro). Soon the DME – Electroacoustic Music Days label will release a new CD with João Pedro Oliveira's works for clarinet.

The new work for cello and double bass by António Chagas Rosa,
La barque partie (2018), will be premiered in the context of the concerts by the Contracello Duo, To See the Sounds, to Hear Images, taking place on December 7, 14 and 18 in Castelo Branco, Lisbon and Madrid. Another piece by this composer published by the MIC.PT, Paysages (2015) for recorder and pianoforte, is included in the programme of the concert tour of the Borealis Ensemble (António Carrilho e Helena Marinho) in Spain, taking place between December 18 and 21. “I believe that I'm always experimenting; yet it doesn’t imply any kind of attachment to any aesthetics or clubs. What pleases me is the notion of beginning something, without knowing where this path shall lead me” – says António Chagas Rosa in the interview given to the MIC.PT in February 2015. “I compose from
an embryo-idea. Inside the general form one can detect the presence of the «molecular» forms" – adds the composer who feels proximity to the works from the middle period
of the Second Viennese School, the ones from the so-called “free atonality”.

On December 10 at the Foz Palace in Lisbon, in the context of the 2nd edition of the CriaSons Festival, Hugo Vasco Reis’ new piece Rizoma (2018) will be premiered by Luís Pacheco Cunha (violin), Catherine Strynckx (cello) and Jill Lawson (piano). The programme
of this concert also includes works by Fernando C. Lapa, António Pinho Vargas and Fernando Lopes-Graça. In the second half of this month – on December 20 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon – Ana Jordão (dance) and Hugo Vasco Reis (electronics) will present the I am (k)not performance, with the acousmatic music by this composer published by the MIC.PT. Additionally, Hugo Vasco Reis is working on
a new work commissioned by the Elogio Trio (Croatia) and in December three of his works will be recorded: Enigmatic Icon (2016) for percussion and electronics, by the Drum-ming – Percussion Group; From Where the Wind Blows (2017) for two clarinets, by Victor Pereira and Ricardo Alves; and Aeonian (2018) for choir and electronics,
by the Soli-Tutti Vocal Ensemble (Paris).

The work Trabalhos da Madeira (2017) for marim-ba and electronics by Miguel Azguime is in-cluded in the programme of another Antena 2 Recital at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, with exceptional performers giving voice to the music of our time. This time on December 11 the invited musician is Pedro Carneiro (marimba), who apart from Miguel Azguime’s piece will also present works by Toshio Hosokawa, Maki Ishii and of his own authorship (excerpts from Microstudies, 2015). Miguel Azguime’s work Trabalhos da Maderia constitutes a musical meditation on the wood. It’s an abstract narrative on the ex-tinction of precious woods and the consequent, disastrous, social, economic and cultural implications. “My music prac-tice began as an instrumentalist, so I feel comfortable on stage. The confrontation of the experience and awareness of the performance’s real time with the «out of time» of the composition, motivates an inner dialog and tension en-riching music creation” – says this composer published by the MIC.PT in the MIC.PT Interview from 2016.

The piece for solo piano Essay VIII, composed by Christopher Bochmann in 1991, will be performed by the pianist Ana Telles in the context of various events taking place this month: on December 3 at the Colégio Mateus d'Aranda in Évora, dur-ing the release of the book on this composer’s work – Christopher Bochmann published by the Atelier de Compo-sição (edition and coordination: Pedro Junqueira Maia); on December 10, at the same venue, in the context of the 3rd International Contemporary Piano Meeting; and on Decem-ber 19 during the Mathematics and Cultural Heritage Days at the Academy of Science in Lisbon, where Ana Telles will also make a presentation – Mathematics, compositional processes and strategies for performance preparation in the case of piano works by Jaime Reis, João Madureira and Christopher Bochmann. Another piece by this composer published by the MIC.PT, Talking of Jasmine (2018) for five percussionists, will be premiered by students of the Music Course at the University of Braga, on December 14 at the D. Diogo de Sousa Museum (Braga), at the inauguration of the Chinese Bronzes Exhibition.

The work Tracking noise #4 (2018) for three performers and electronics by Luís Antunes Pena will be performed on December 6 by the ensemble hand werk,
in the context of the International Contemporary Music Festival Crossroads, taking place at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg (Austria). The programme of this concert also includes a piece by the Portuguese composer Francisca Martins. This month, on December 18, another work by this composer published by the MIC.PT – the performance of Konvolut (2014-15), for ensemble and electronics, by the Ensemble Horizonte with Jörg-Peter Mittmann (conductor), registered in Detmold on October 7 – will be presented on the WDR 3 Radio. The same German station will also host Luís Antunes Pena, among other guests, on December 22 at the live radio programme – Open Sounds: Studio Elektronische Musik Stromline [67] Live. At the end of the month on December 27, the percus-sionist Nuno Aroso will perform the piece Música para 30 metais (2012) for 30 cymbals and electronics, in the context of the 1st Itinerant Percussion Festival in Aveiro.

Capdeville XXI is a performance realized in coproduction between the Casa das Artes de Vila Nova de Famalicão and the INET-md / University of Aveiro. It will be taking place on on December 4 (Vila Nova de Famalicão) and 5 (University of Aveiro). According to its creators, the aim of this project “is to rescue from the oblivion a central figure and her works within Portuguese experimentalism, focusing on them the light of prominence which they deserve”. The starting point here are the two paradigmatic works by Constança Capdeville (composer published by the MIC.PT): Double from 1982 and Don’t, Juan from 1985; both
of them have been performed publicly only two times, and now they are recreated by the Performa Ensemble and the Xperimus Ensemble.

Música nossa lá fora (1) (Our Music Outdside) is the title of the perfor-mance by the GMCL – Lisbon Contemporary Music Group directed by Vasco Pearce de Azevedo, taking place on December 12 at the Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. The pro-gramme of this event dedicated to Portuguese music from the 20th and 21st Centuries includes works by five composers published by the MIC.PT – Caminho de Orfeu (2003) by Clotilde Rosa, Coração (2015) by João Madureira, Leves Véus Velam… (1980-81) by Jorge Peixinho, Momento I (1974) by Constança Capdeville and Crossfade (2009) by Carlos Caires; as well as Figurações IX (2001-02) by Filipe Pires, and the premiere performance of Tableaux (2018) by Pedro Faria Gomes.

Ver os Sons, Ouvir Imagens (To See the Sounds, to Hear Images) is a project by the Contracello Duo, which will be presented in Castelo Branco, Lisbon and Madrid on December 7, 14 and 18. It includes works by six composers published by the MIC.PT: Anamorphoses VIII (2014) by Isabel Soveral; Fluxus, Drag (2015) by Jaime Reis; E(H)LLE(M) – Sete momentos em forma de trança (2017) by Ângela Lopes, Dark Energy (2018) by João Pedro Oliveira and La barque partie (2018) by António Chagas Rosa (premiere). At these performances the sounds of the cello and double bass of Miguel Rocha and Adriano Aguiar, interact with the images created by Maria Irene Aparício, Inês Silva, João Pedro Oliveira and Gabriel Marmelo.

Daniel Davis (DDav0001)
analogous (2015) · clarinet in Bb

Daniel Davis (DDav0002)
other side... (2017) · accordion

Daniel Davis (DDav0003)
Sonata for Violin and Piano (2017) · violin and piano

Works by five composers published by the MIC.PT – Paysages by António Chagas Rosa; Três quadros sobre
o fado by Rui Penha; Duas invenções by Cândido Lima; Feedback Orders by Miguel Azguime; and My Shadow Walks With Me by Sara Carvalho – are included in the programe of the concerts, Tempos cruzados (Crossed Times), which the Borealis Ensemble will give during a tour in Spain between December 18 and 21. The Borealis Ensemble is constituted by Helena Marinho (piano, pianoforte) and António Carrilho (recorders). Its projects show how it is possible to deconstruct and reinvent common notions on the historical and organologic limitations of instruments such as the recorder or the pianoforte. Proposing a dialogue between apparently disparate repertoires and distinct time periods, always giving a special focus to the music by Portuguese authors, the concerts of the duo’s Spanish tour will also include works by Sigismund Neukomm, Vasco Negreiros and José Maria Ribas.

For its 2nd edition the CriaSons Festival returns with its main objective to continue the broad promotion of classical music, with particular emphasis on Portuguese contemporary creation. Organized by the Musicamera Produções, the CriaSons has invited six renowned composers “residents” to construct six different programmes to compose the Festival’s programme: Amílcar Vasques-Dias, Fernando C. Lapa and Cândido Lima – composers published by the MIC.PT; and also Eurico Carrapatoso, Alexandre Delgado and Alejandro Erlich Oliva. Each of the proposed pro-grammes will include a work written for the Festival by one of the “emerging” composers, selected at the CriaSons Competition: Edward Luiz Ayres d'Abreu, Tiago Derriça, Miguel Jesus, Camila Menino, Samuel Pascoal and Hugo Vasco Reis (composer published by the MIC.PT). The per-formance of the programme Atmosferas conceived by Fernando C. Lapa will take place on December 10 at the Foz Palace in Lisbon.

Works by three composers published by the MIC.PT – Nuno e os Monstros by Isabel Soveral with story by Ágata Mandillo, A Ilha by Rui Penha with text by João Gomes de Abreu and Yara Kono, Uma Mesa é uma Mesa... Será? by José Luís Ferreira with story by Isabel Minhós Martins, and two works by Miguel Azguime, Um Livro é um livro… Será? and Rouxinol do Imperador with story by Hans Christian Andersen – are included in the Sound Told Fairy Tales performances, taking place on December 4-6 at the Teatro da Rainha in Caldas da Rainha, and on December 7, 12 and 13 at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. These performances, whose programme also includes the pieces O Pastorinho e a Flauta (traditional story) with music by Carlos Guedes and O pássaro da cabeça with music by Joana Sá and poem by Gonçalo M. Tavares, will include the narration by Ana Baptista, Francisco Sales and Miguel Azguime, and the sound projection realized by André Hencleeday, Paula Azguime and Miguel Azguime. Sound Told Fairy Tales is a project by the Miso Music Portugal for young audiences, created to continue the old and disappearing tradition of storytelling.

The 1st Itinerant Percussion Festival is an initiative by the cultural association Arte no Tempo and PercuStudio directed to the secondary school and academic students, with artistic direction by Mário Teixeira and Diana Ferreira. It will take place this month at the Centro Cultural e de Congressos in Aveiro. The programme of this event – putting music in the first plan and reuniting percussionists from seven superior education institutions – is constituted, on the one hand, by masterclasses conducted by the professors and renowned musicians: Richard Buckley (timpani), Miquel Bernat (vibraphone), Nuno Aroso (marimba) and Bruno Costa (snare drum). On the other hand, the event is composed of recitals by Richard Buckley, Nuno Aroso and Mário Teixeira (December 27), Bruno Costa and Pedro Carneiro (December 28), as well as Marco Fernandes and Miquel Bernat (December 29). The programme of the closing concert, on December 30, includes premieres of three percussion septets: two written by João Pedro Oliveira and Ricardo Ribeiro (composers published by the MIC.PT); and one composed by the young composer Mariana Vieira.

This December Daniel Davis has joined the group of Composers Published by the MIC.PT, which presently includes 66 authors. Born in 1990, this year Daniel Davis has been offered a conditional place for a Doctoral Programme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama,
in London – with the support of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Guildhall Research Department – with the composers: Julian Philips and Richard Baker. In the UK he has also been working with the composer Julian Anderson. Presently the Catalogue of Scores Published by the MIC.PT includes three works by Daniel Davis, and various other works by this composer are being prepared for edition in the following months; Daniel Davis' new scores on the MIC.PT are: analogous from 2015 (DDav0001), for B-flat clarinet; other side... from 2017 (DDav0002), for accordion; and Sonata from 2017 (DDav0003), for violin and piano.

From December the MIC.PT publishes on-line the new Performer’s Page dedicated to Paulo Jorge Ferreira,
a preponderant figure in the artistic development of the accordion repertoire in Portugal. Born in 1966, Paulo Jorge Ferreira has performed solo and chamber music concerts, both at national and international level – in France, Mexico, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Macau, Spain, Hungary, the Netherlands and Germany. He has performed with renowned Portu-guese and foreign musicians. As instrumentalist he has also participated in the performance of diverse premieres of works for orchestra, ensemble and chamber music pieces, which include the accordion. Paulo Jorge Ferreira is professor of accordion at the Superior School of Applied Arts of Castelo Branco and at the National Conservatoire in Lisbon. He often participates as jury member at accordion competitions, being also artistic director of the Folefest – Accordion Festival and Contest, and president of the Folefest Association.