In April and May Igor C. Silva, composer published by the MIC.PT, premiered two new recordings on his >> YouTube Channel: >> Blindspot Box (2018) for bass clarinet, electronics, video/ lighting, performed by Maija Anttila; and >> Blackout Phase (2019) for electric guitar, three percussionists, electronics and video, performed by the Drumming – Percussion Group. The first piece is a commission by the Finnish clarinetist Maija Anttila and the DME Festival, and the second one by the Drumming – Percussion Group.

The video music work Things I Have Seen in My Dreams (2019) by João Pedro Oliveira makes part of the official selection (Monthly Selections January–April 2020) of the Santiago Independent Film Awards, in the Best Experimental category. This work and other video music pieces by this composer published by the MIC.PT, are available on
>> João Pedro Oliveira’s Vimeo Channel.

Miguel Azguime, composer published by the MIC.PT, is creating a new work to the text by Alberto Pimenta, Discurso sobre o Filho-da-Puta. This joint theatrical and choral project realised with the director Fernando Mora Ramos, will have its avant-premiere on June 24 at the Teatro da Rainha (Caldas da Rainha). Discurso sobre o Filho-da-Puta is a poem in form of prose where the word doesn't only have meaning, but also gives origin to a stylistic artifice.

The 1st On-line Meeting · Portuguese Music Perspectives – Network Cooperation, an initiative organised by the Portuguese Music Research and Information Centre – MIC.PT, took place on May 29. It assembled 40 participants – including the members of the MIC.PT Scientific Council, as well as representatives from 27 Entities connected with Invention and Research Music in Portugal. The entities are: APC · Portuguese Association of Composers; APEM · Portuguese Music Education Association; Composition Atelier; Music Department · University of Évora; Drumming · Percussion Group; Entre Madeiras Trio; ESMAE · Superior School of Music and Performance Arts; DME Festival · Electroacoustic Music Days; International Spring Music Festival of Viseu; GMCL · Lisbon Contemporary Music Group; INET-md · Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Research in Music and Dance; Interferência; Lisbon Ensemble XX/XXI; Meloteca; Miso Music Portugal; MPMP · Patrimonial Movement for Portuguese Music; Musicamera Productions; Young Musicians' Award; Portuguese Chamber Orchestra; Orquestra Sem Fronteiras (Orchestra Without Boarders); Symphonic Youth Orchestra; Performa Ensemble; Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble; Contratempus Quartet; Matosinhos String Quartet; Xperimus. The Meeting's Agenda included presentations by Rui Vieira Nery, António de Sousa Dias, Miguel Azguime and Jakub Szczypa from the MIC.PT, as well as by the present Entities' representatives. The 1st On-line Meeting · Portuguese Music Perspectives – Network Cooperation constituted the first step in a joint work process. This process will include Debates organised to explore and discuss various matters common among all the Entities participating in the Meeting, including a reflection on the possibility of a closer and more direct cooperation between them, in the framework of a formal or informal network.

The MIC.PT On-line Score Catalogue presently includes 1055 scores by 70 female and male composers, residing and working in Portugal. Last month the Catalogue was enriched with five more scores by: Ângela da Ponte (Macrophylla II · didactic score), Miguel Azguime ((ThS)inking Survival Kit and Enveloppement [versions for soprano and piano/ soprano and ensemble]) and Diogo Alvim (Tłumaczenie). The latter score by Diogo Alvim, written in 2014-15 for the Royal String Quartet, has an experimental format and results from this composer's interest in the relations between music and architecture. In this case, the composition was based on the analysis of a concrete building – the Music Department of the Stranmillis College in Belfast. In order to articulate how the building's architecture informs the musical composition, the quartet's three parts have been inspired in three different works by Polish artists – Krzysztof Penderecki, Edward Krasiński and Stanisław Lem. The first two parts have been notated as graphic scores and the third one has been conceived as a sonic score. The musicians "read" it through the audition of a recording made by the composer, on which he reads a phrase taken from Stanislaw Lem's novel His Master's Voice. This recording, subject to the same sonic transformations as used in Alvin Lucier's piece I’m Sitting in a Room, was realised at the Stranmillis College.

In February the Romanian Section of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music) released an international call directed to other ISCM Sections, to propose music works for the next Meridian Festival dedicated to the theme Planetarium (November 8-15, Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara). In this sense, the Music Music Portugal/ MIC.PT, as the Portuguese ISCM Section, has invited five female and male composers to include their works in the application for the Meridian 2020 Festival. The works are: Oi In Lov (1997) for solo violin by Cândido Lima, Canto Solar (2010) for clarinet, violin, viola and cello by Clotilde Rosa, Le Bleu Profond (1995-2015) for clarinet and piano by Miguel Azguime, Nocturna Itinera (2008) for string quartet by Patrícia Sucena de Almeida and The moon lost her name (2007) for solo violin by Sara Carvalho. The works selected for the Festival will be announced after July 1.

In the beginning of May the Young Musicians' Award direction, in consonance with the Antena 2 direction, released an >> Official Statement regarding the postponement of this year's edition of the Young Musicians' Award. "Due to the global pandemic affecting the artistic and musical environment in Portugal and around the world, we have decided to postpone the 34th edition od the Young Musicians' Award for 2021. However, we keep our goal to organise the Young Musicians' Festival as planned, in the end of September 2020 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, with the participation of our partner entities and ex-laureates". The PJM organisers also emphasise: "The currently selected candidates will keep their legitimate right to participate in the 2021 edition without the need to be subjected to repeated qualifying rounds. These rounds, whose dates are to be announced, will be organised for other participants, in order to give the opportunity not only to new competitors, but also to the ones who couldn't send their recordings this year or who had to do it in adverse conditions".

Ângela da Ponte (APon0006 · didactic score)
Macrophylla II (2015) · viola and electronics

Diogo Alvim (DAlv0006 · includes sound score)
Tłumaczenie (2014-15) · string quartet

Miguel Azguime (MA0026)
(ThS)inking Survival Kit (2010-12) · soprano, speaker, ensemble and electronics

Miguel Azguime (MA0031)
Enveloppement (2013-15) · soprano and piano

Miguel Azguime (MA0032)
Enveloppement (2013-16) · soprano and ensemble

This year the MPMP – Patrimonial Movement for Portuguese Music and the Glosas Journal (published by the MPMP) celebrate their 10th anniversary. The public presentation of this project, which has been actively contributing for the dissemination of the work by composers active in Portugal and throughout the lusophone universe, took place on April 29 2010, at the National Conservatoire in Lisbon. To celebrate the anniversary the MPMP has prepared a mini-festival with concerts, new releases, round-tables and presentation of new project. Due to the present pandemic the festival had to be postponed, however the celebrations took on an on-line form. In this sense the >> Glosas Journal Website has published more than 30 testimonies by the MPMP partners, collaborators, friends and associates. Last month in the context of the festivities the MPMP also announced the winner of the Musa Award, one of the more recent projects dedicated to contemporary creation, organised by the MPMP with the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto. This time the Award's theme was the 100th anniversary of the writer Ruben A. (1920-75) and the distinction was given to the composer Miguel Resende Bastos (n. 1995), following the decision of the jury constituted by the composers Andreia Pinto Correia, Januibe Tejera and the conductor Jan Wierzba. Miguel Resende Bastos graduated from Compositon at the ESMAE in Porto and he continues his studies in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). The winning score of his authorship, Um adeus aos deuses, is inspired in a homonymous work by Ruben A., published in 1963 in form of a travel diary, with the subtitle Greece.

The Culture Association EMERGE and the IVS: Institute of Viral Sonology have joined forces to carry out the construction of a collective sonic installation, contextualising this unique moment we are all experiencing – SARS-COV-2 · Sound Analogies and Radical Sonification: Curatorial Ontology and the Viral Sonic Dissemination in the Trembling Pandemic Forces. In this sense, these entities have announced a call for artists (open until July 12), who live and work in Europe, to develop 2-minute, sonic/ musical compositions. The received material will be transformed into a collective sonic piece to be presented in form of a multichannel/ quadrophonic installation with spatialised sound. The installation will be created by the intermedia and sonic artist Hugo Paquete and the curator Jorge Reis. This artwork will be presented at the project's partner venues – DME Festival/ Lisboa Incomum, Teatro Ibérico and the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences (University of Porto). The selected works will be also released on a digital and printed album. The amount raised from its sales and streamings will be donated to European institutions and organisations, researching or developing medicine and vaccine to fight against the new coronavirus.