The first MIC.PT In Focus section in 2020 is dedicated to João Quinteiro, composer who's presently working on his Doctoral Thesis in the area of Artistic Studies – Art and Mediations. This project integrates the creation of his opera, Regresso.
João Quinteiro studied composition with João Pedro Oliveira, Isabel Soveral, Emmanuel Nunes and Beat Furrer. He's also had contact and worked with various other composers, including: Brian Ferneyhough, Flô Menezes and Helmut Lachenmann. In 2013 he realised his Master's Degree in Composition at the University of Aveiro and in Philosophy at the NOVA University in Lisbon – FSCH. He's professor at the Ourearte – Art and Music School in Ourém, as well as member of the APC (Portuguese Composers' Association) Direction. His music has been performed and commissioned by various ensembles such as: the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Lisbon Ensemble 20/21, the GMCL – Lisbon Contemporary Music Group, the OpuSpiritum Ensemble as well as the Ensemble MISE-EN.
This January visit the MIC.PT In Focus section with the MIC.PT Questionnaire / Interview to João Quinteiro (composer published by the MIC.PT), to get to know his music roots, his ideas on the music avant-garde and the artist's responsibility towards the audience, as well as his opinions concerning Portuguese contemporary music.

The work Dimensions I (2019), for clarinet and electronics, by Hugo Vasco Reis, composer published by the MIC.PT, will have its premiere at the Casa da Música on January 14, by the clarinettist Victor Pereira. The programme of this concert also includes the work Time Spell (2004) by João Pedro Oliveira (composer published by the MIC.PT) and the music by Grisey and Boulez. On January 17 at the Music Conser-vatoire of Vila do Conde, Hugo Vasco Reis will give a recital for Portuguese guitar, included in the concert series Sextas às Sete. The repertoire of this solo recital is composed of pieces by Carlos Paredes, Pedro Caldeira Cabral and of two premieres by Hugo Vasco Reis – performer and composer. The pieces are: Finos Raios de Luz (2018), for Portuguese guitar and electronics and Linea (2018), for Portuguese guitar, cymbal, bow and drum sticks. At the end of the month the Portuguese premiere of his work Transparent(e) (2017), for flute, viola and harp, will be performed by Marina Camponês, Ana Monteverde and Carolina Coimbra, respectively, at the National Ancient Art Museum in Lisbon. Lastly, on January 30 the Musicamera will release the CD Festival Criasons II, including Hugo Vasco Reis' work Rizoma (2018), for violin, cello and piano and the music by Camila Menino, Edward Luiz Ayres d’Abreu, Miguel Jesus, Samuel Pascoal, Tiago Derriça.

On January 17 the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon will host a monographic concert composed of works by António de Sousa Dias, celebrating the 60th anniversary of this composer published by the MIC.PT. The programme of the concert performed by the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble and conducted by Pedro Carneiro, includes António de Sousa Dias' six works: Variação sobre Glosa (2014), Ressonâncias-Memóras (2003), pour un cadavre exquis (2010), Komm, tanz mit mir! (1997), Cinco Circunstâncias para clarinete e piano (1995); as well as the premiere of a New Work commissioned by the Miso Music Portugal. "My approach towards music has been gaining shape during the years, taking into account the multiplicity of means, genres and ends" – says António de Sousa Dias in the MIC.PT Interview from Abril 2017. The event is organised in the framework of the Art’s Birthday 2020 – Euroradio Ars Acustica Special Evening – with direct broadcast from various countries. In Portugal the evening will be broadcast from the Miso Music Portugal (O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon), on the Antena 2, for the European Broadcasting Union. The Art’s Birthday is a celebration in homage to the French artist Robert Filliou who on January 17, 1963 declared that Art had been born exactly 1.000.000 before, when somebody had dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water.

The work Águas Marinhas (2005) for 14 instruments by Miguel Azguime – composer published by the MIC.PT –, is included in the concert by the New Music Ensemble of The Glenn Gould School conducted by Brian Curren. It'll take place on January 19 at the Mazzoleni Hall (Toronto) during the 21C Music Festival. This piece was commissioned by the Japanese Society for Contemporary Music and the ComeT Orchestra, which premiered its first version in Tokyo in 2005. The final version of Águas Marinhas was premiered by the Remix Ensemble Casa da Música and Dominique My. It was then released on the CD Water Mirror by the Camerata Aberta and Guillaume Bourgogne (2012, São Paulo). This work is about the interaction between light and water. It sonically transmits various phenomena, such as: transparency, reflection, radiation and colour separation.

On January 24 the São Francisco Convent in Coimbra will host the release of the sonic installation Campo Próximo (Near Field), created by Diogo Alvim, composer published by the MIC.PT and the sonic artist Matilde Meireles. The installation, which plays with the perception and construction of places creating dialogues between them and the spaces in which it's presented, will be activated through an electronic music performance by the above mentioned artists. They'll develop the installation's sonic materials in form of a concert. This event integrates the INVASOR ABSTRACTO project by the OSSO Coletivo, developing experimental initiatives and intending to explore artistic practices in articulation with a critical, aesthetics and political thought, contemplating the specificity of the contexts, where these projects are carried out.

The work Dark Energy (2018) for cello, double bass, electronics and video by João Pedro Oliveira, has been awarded with the First Prize at the Musica Nova 2019 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (in the Mixed Music Category), organised for more than 25 years by the Electroacoustic Music Society of the Czech Republic. Another work by this composer published by the MIC.PT Time Spell (2004) for clarinet and electronics, makes part of the recital by the clarinettist Victor Pereira, which will take place on January 14 at the Casa da Música. The programme of this concert also includes the work Dimensions I (2019) by Hugo Vasco Reis (composer published by the MIC.PT), as well the music by Gérard Grisey and Pierre Boulez. Additionally, from January João Pedro Oliveira takes the office of the Composition Coordinator (Corwin Endowed Chair of Music Composition) at the University of California in Santa Barbara (USA).

The musicians of the Musicamera Ensemble will premiere a new work for instrumental ensemble by Jaime Reis, on January 25 in Vila Real (Portugal). At the end of the month, on January 30 at the Fábrica Braço de Prata in Lisbon, the Musicamera Produções organises a special event whose programme will include a DVD release of the Ver os Sons, Ouvir Imagens project (See the Sounds, Hear Images), by the Contracello Duo (Adriano Aguiar · double bass; Miguel Rocha · cello). The DVD includes Jaime Reis' piece Fluxus, Drag (2015). "Despite having composed, on various occasions, music based on extra-musical phenomena, such as biological and aerodynamic models, I don’t see them solely as a source of inspiration. It has more to do with how I experience a certain phenomenon. I also have pieces inspired in literature and other arts, which, likewise, involve the way I live or have lived a particular work or artistic experience" – said Jaime Reis in the MIC.PT Interview from 2016.

O pescador de sons: desafios para piano em dez peças inéditas (2019, CESEM) (The Sound Fisherman: Challenges for Piano in Ten Inedited Pieces) – it's the title of a new didactic publication for piano, by the pianist Luísa Tender and Manuel Pedro Ferreira. It includes the cycle for piano by this composer published by the MIC.PT, musicologist, researcher, critic and performer: Le gymnaste – Lamento à sexta – Nocturno. Manuel Pedro Ferreira is President and Executive Director of the CESEM – Centre for Studies in Music Sociology and Aesthetic at the NOVA University of Lisbon. His music pieces, premiered mostly in Portugal, include chamber music (small ensembles and piano music) and choir music. Constança Capdeville and Luigi Nono were some of the composers who encouraged him to write music. He attended composition classes by Emmanuel Nunes but considers himself an autodidact.

Brieff für Teresa (2019) is the title of the new piece by Eduardo Luís Patriarca, for cello and live electronics, which will be premiered by the cellist António José Oliveira on January 24 at the Municipal Youth Centre in Vila do Conde. "I feel a connection with the spectral school" – says this composer published by the MIC.PT in the Interview given to the MIC.PT in July 2015. And he continues: "Not only because of the emotional relation with some of the works, but also with the great part of this aesthetic guidelines; and not at the most profound level of the original foundation of the spectral «school», but in the final results. What interests me is the manipulation within a sound per se, transforming it in the unique and exclusive element of creation, as the definition of determined processes, characterising the harmonic and formal structure".

Works by the two composers published by the MIC.PT – Nuno e os Monstros (2008) by Isabel Soveral with the story by Ágata Mandillo and O Leão e o Rato (2019) by Miguel Azguime with the text by Aesop and La Fontaine – are included in the performances of the Sound Told Fairy Tales, taking place on January 13 and 14 at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. This programme also includes the pieces: Platero e Eu (2019) with music by Luís Martins to the fragments of poem by Juan Ramón Jimènez and A Velha e o Ladrão (2008) with music by Sérgio Pelágio and story by António Torrado. These performances include the participation of Ana Baptista and Miguel Azguime, as narrators, with the sound projection realised by Paula Azguime. The Sound Told Fairy Tales project – directed to young audiences and created by the Miso Music Portugal to give continuation to the disappearing tradition of storytelling – offers an innovative and enriched way of telling and listening to a story, with the sonic layer suggesting and complementing the semantic meaning of the words.

Ângela Lopes, António Chagas Rosa, Clotilde Rosa, Isabel Soveral, Jaime Reis and João Pedro Oliveira – they are the composers published by the MIC.PT whose works are included in the project Ver os Sons, Ouvir Imagens (See the Sounds, Hear Images) by the Contracello Duo (Adriano Aguiar · double bass; Miguel Rocha · cello), and under the auspices of the Musicamera Produções. The DVD of this multimedia project, where the music performed by the Duo interacts with audiovisual sequences designed by Portuguese video artists, will be released on January 30 at the Fábrica Braço de Prata in Lisbon. The second edition of this project will be taking place during 2020/21. It'll include the participation of the composers published by the MIC.PT: Cândido Lima, Christopher Bochmann and João Pedro Oliveira; and of: Anne Victorino D’Almeida, Emanuel Pimenta and Mariana Vieira, among other artists.

In December the MIC.PT has published a new Composer's Page dedicated to Cláudio de Pina, composer and organist (pipe and Hammond organ). Born in 1977, Cláudio de Pina did his Master's Degree in Music Arts in 2018 (FCSH / UNL, Lisbon). His thesis supervised by Isabel Pires, is entitled: Instrumental Music for Pipe Organ and Electronics. He also studied with Annette Vande Gorne, Gilles Gobeil, Trevor Wishart, Hans Tutschku, Jaime Reis, Åke Parmerud, Adrian Moore, Eurico Carrapatoso and César Viana. Since 2018 he has been doing his Doctorate in Music Arts (FCSH / ESML, Lisbon), being researcher at the GIMC / CESEM. In his curriculum the most frequent terms concerning scientific, technological and artistic production are: pipe organs; electronics; spatialisation; reverberation; composition; extended techniques; recording; convolution; granulation; and Ligeti. Cláudio de Pina's work has already been performed in Milan, Matera, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, Mexico, Kiev, Switzerland, Torres Vedras, Viseu, Aveiro and Lisbon.

Christopher Bochmann (CB0124)
Four Fancies (2016) · two guitars

Diogo Alvim (DAlv0005)
Music for Sax and Boxes (2012) · tenor saxophone, tape and live electronics

Hugo Vasco Reis (HVReis0012)
Transparent(e) (2017) · flute, viola and harp

Lino Guerreiro (LGuer0002)
Haze (2015) · clarinet and electronics

The International Music Festival of Póvoa de Varzim announces and promotes the 13th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim (CICPV), whose Jury is composed of: Luís Tinoco (President), Sara Carvalho (composer published by the MIC.PT) and Jesús Rueda. The CICPV's objective is to award works by composers born after January 1, 1985. The invited ensemble for this edition is Drumming – Percussion Group. The deadline for submitting works is April 17, 2020.

The INATEL Foundation and the FOLEFEST Association organise and promote the Accordion Composition Award 2020, whose Jury is composed of: Paulo Jorge Ferreira (President), Daniel Moreira (composer published by the MIC.PT) and Luís Tinoco. This Competition is directed to Portuguese composers, or residents in Portugal, of any age, upon submitting an inedited work. One of the main objectives of this initiative is to encourage the creation of contemporary music for accordion. The deadline for submitting compositions is May 29, 2020.