The first In Focus on the MIC.PT in 2021 is dedicated to Rui Penha – composer, intermedia artist, performer of electroacoustic music, professor at the ESMAE – Superior School of Music and Performance Arts (Polytechnic Institute of Porto) and researcher at the CESEM – Centre for Studies in Music Aesthetics and Sociology (Lisbon).
Rui Penha was born in Porto in 1981. He completed his PhD in Music (Composition) at the University of Aveiro. His music has been recorded and performed by musicians such as the Arditti Quartet, Peter Evans, the Remix Ensemble or the Gulbenkian Orchestra. He was founder and curator of the Digitópia (Casa da Música), having a deep interest in the relationship between music and technology. His recent production includes interfaces for musical expression, sound spatialisation software, interactive installations, musical robots, autonomous improvisers and educational software. In the recent years he has been particularly interested in the role of artistic creation within academic context.
On January 15 and 16, Rui Penha's work Três quadros sobre o fado · Métrica, Melodia, Harmonia (2013), will be performed by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble Soloists – Sílvia Cancela (flute) and Elsa Silva (piano) –, respectively, at the at the Teatro da Rainha in Caldas da Rainha (Portugal) and at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon (Antena 2 Recital).
This month, visit the MIC.PT In Focus section with an Interview to Rui Penha, composer published by the MIC.PT.

NOTA BENE: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the initiatives disseminated in this Newsletter can be subject to changes in the programming or postponements. For updated information, please visit the websites of the organising entities.

The work Tesseract (video-music; 2017) by João Pedro Oliveira was distinguished with a Honourable Mention at the Oficial Selection for the 40th Season of the Thomas Edison Black Maria Film Festival (2021; USA). Another work by this composer published by the MIC.PT, Dark Energy (2018) for cello, double bass, electronics and video, received a Distinction at the Please Yourself Competition by the Alvarez Chamber Orchestra (UK). Additionally – his work Pirâmides de Cristal (1993) for piano, was one of the seven finalist pieces (among the 400 submitted scores) of the Musica Prospettiva 2020-21 Call; the piece Mosaic (2010) for piano and electronics received the 2nd Award at the She Lives Budapest Prize; and the electroacoustic work N’vi’ah (2019) is finalist at the Prix Russolo 2020/21. This month, on January 17, João Pedro Oliveira's video-music Things I Have Seen in My Dreams (2019), will be presented at the Psychedelic Film and Music Festival (USA).

Par ce chemin de rien (2019-20) is the title of the new piece for flute and piano by Miguel Azguime, composer published by the MIC.PT, which will be premiered by Sílvia Cancela and Elsa Silva – Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble Soloists –, on January 15 & 16, respectively, at the Teatro da Rainha in Caldas da Rainha (Portugal) and at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon (Antena 2 Recital). Additionally, the first presentations of Miguel Azguime's new sound poetry performance, A Vida é Sempre Preferível, ou o monólogo do sal para lhe completar a medida, will take place on January 22 & 23 and the O'culto da Ajuda. «Here, the composer, the poet and the performer reunite again in a unique solo performance, within a new excursion through the word as music and music as word. It's a work in progress in search for a new becoming, a return to the word and its electronic transformations, reflecting on the man and the world, where life is always the preferable place and path.»

In January Manuel Brásio, composer published by the MIC.PT, will participate in the presentations of the piece Quem fala assim, a multidisciplinary project produced by the Interferência Association, uniting two composers (José Tiago Baptista and Manuel Brásio) within a performance on the artistic and sonic potential of stuttering [Sá de Miranda Municipal Theatre, Viana do Castelo (January 16) and Casa das Artes in Porto (January 22)]. «If one takes speech as music expression, with gesture, melody, rhythm and harmony of its own, then stuttering is a medium of parametrical variation. If one also considers the fact that there are no identical ways of stuttering, each one of them with different type of pauses, repetitions and interjections, the palette of possibilities becomes immense. This performance aims at valorising and recognising the differences among humans, through a narrative approaching the origins of stuttering, its constraints, prejudices, inhibitions and myths» – reveal the project's creators.

Estudos Literários - Retratos (2012) is the cycle of studies for piano by João Madureira, composer published by the MIC.PT, which the pianist Ana Telles has recently recorded on the new CD edited and released by the MPMP – Patrimonial Movement for Portuguese Music, in the framework of the Melographia Portugueza collection (CD 25). The cycle Estudos Literários – Retratos is composed of nine pieces, each one of them dedicated to a personality from Portuguese culture. «In my music I use and integrate various references within an exercise of sheer freedom, as a composer in the world. It's like in the poem by Paul Valéry, The Conquest of Ubiquity – everything can be seen from different angles and various perspectives. We have lost the hierarchy, but we have recovered the freedom that since always has existed in numerous artists and composers. There has been a lot before Bach – Pergolesi and the whole Italy… and before Perotin, and before him, Boethius…» – said João Madureira in the Interview given to the MIC.PT in 2017.

The work Storyboard, 6 miniatures for piano four hands (2003) by Fernando C. Lapa, composer published by the MIC.PT, is included in the programme of the concert by Luís Duarte and Lígia Madeira (piano), which will take place on January 26 at the Casa da Música in Porto. This commented performance will be an occasion to present the new CD by this piano duo, Portuguese Music for Piano Duo (Brilliant Classics), and it will include the participation of António Victorino d’Almeida (presentation and commentaries), whose work Balada (para uma criança que vai nascer), op. 126 as well as Sérgio Azevedo's Sonatina for piano four hands, also make part of the programme.

The new piece by Carlos Marecos (composer published by the MIC.PT), Música para 4 mãos (2020), will be premiered by Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira (piano four hands), on January 28 at the ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics and Management (Antena 2 Recital). The programme of this concert creating a dialogue between French, Belgian and Portuguese music, also includes the premiere of a new piece by Sérgio Azevedo (Sonatina no. 2). In the framework of this new project, Bruno Belthoise and João Costa Ferreira will release a new CD under the Coriolan/ Inventive Art Music label (with the support of the Antena 2), thus celebrating the France-Portugal 2022 Season.

1+1=1 (ONE+ONE=ONE) is the performance directed by Paula Pinto and with music by António de Sousa Dias (composer published by the MIC.PT), joining dance, music, video and words around the universe of the Portuguese artist Almada Negreiros. This project results form the work developed at the 14th Compota Creative Residency, involving a multidisciplinary team of profissional artists, students from the Dance College and the Music College of Lisbon, and pupils from the basic dance course at the Luís António Verney School. The performance 1+1=1 will be presented on January 29, 30 and 31, at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon (live streaming on the >> Miso Music Portugal's YouTube Channel).

On January 16 the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon will host another Antena 2 Live Recital, with Portuguese exceptional musicians performing renowned 20th century works, together with the music by Portuguese contemporary composers. This time the O'culto's stage will receive the duo constituted by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble Soloists – Sílvia Cancela (flute) and Elsa Silva (piano). They will perform the three pieces by the composers published by the MIC.PT – Par ce chemin de rien (2019-20; world premiere) by Miguel Azguime, Três Quadros sobre o fado (2013) by Rui Penha and My shadow walks home with me (2011) by Sara Carvalho. The programme of this recital, with live streaming on the >> Miso Music Portugal YouTube Channel and which will be repeated on January 15 at the Teatro da Rainha (Caldas da Rainha), also includes the music by Doina Rotaru and Jonathan Harvey.

Following the tradition of the previous years, on January 17 the Miso Music Portugal and the Antena 2 join the Euroradio (EBU) for the 2021 Art's Birthday. This time, due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, this initiative will take place exclusively via radio broadcast, without the presence of a live audience. In this sense, two electroacoustic pieces will be broadcast from Lisbon at 7h10 p.m.: Barra-a-Barra (2020) by Filipe Esteves and Artifake (2020) by António Ferreira (composer published by the MIC.PT). The Art’s Birthday 2021 – Euroradio Ars Acustica Special Evening – with direct broadcast from various countries, is a celebration in homage to the French artist Robert Filliou who on January 17, 1963 declared that Art would've been born exactly 1.000.000 before, when somebody dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water!

In December the MIC.PT has reactivated the Portuguese version of the New Music Review Lounge (Espaço Crítica para a Nova Música), an on-line forum for open and free critique, where uncompromising opinions, tastes and new tendencies in the music created in Portugal, can be discussed in both breadth and depth. It is a place dedicated, on the one hand, to multiple aesthetics and expressions, creative phenomena, musical narratives, performances/ concerts of contemporary art music, and, on the other, their relation to other areas such as visual arts, dance, architecture, literature, new technologies, psychology and sociology. Making reference to the words of the French poet, journalist and writer, Anatole France, on the New Music Review Lounge the authors «narrate the adventures of their minds among masterpieces».
From December one of the collaborators of the the New Music Review Lounge is the critic, journalist, musicologist and musician, Pedro Boléo, whose two texts about two concerts which took place last month at the O'culto da Ajuda and the CCB in Lisbon are already available on-line. The first one, >> Diversas vozes despertas, concerns the concert by the Lisbon Ensemble XX/ XXI, which took place in the context of the the Emergency Extension of the Música Viva 2020 Festival and whose programme was composed of five works by Portuguese composers. The second text, >> Uma viagem donde não se sai ileso, is a review of the concert entitled Utopia, in the context of which the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble Soloists and the Camerata Alma Mater, under the baton of Pedro Neves, gave the premiere performance of Miguel Azguime's new Triple Concert.

Música de Invenção e Pesquisa (Invention & Research Music) – it's the name of the new radio broadcast produced by the Miso Music Portugal and the MIC.PT – Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre for the Antena 2, which from January 2021 has substituted the Música Hoje (Music Today) programme. On the one hand, Música de Invenção e Pesquisa will continue the thematic and programmatic lines developed in the context of the Música Hoje, giving focus to the music created by composers residing in Portugal, presenting discographic novelties and organising interviews and round tables. On the other hand, this new programme, on air every two weeks, will soon start an original cycle, in the framework of which composers will present and analyse their own music works; it will certainly be a unique opportunity to get to know, At First Hand, the invention and research music created in Portugal. The two first January programmes will be dedicated to various new CDs with Portuguese music – Portuguese Contemporary Music for Guitar, Duo Contracello IV, Jaime Reis – Fluxus and Jaime Reis – Solo and Chamber Works.

Lino Guerreiro (LGuer0004)
Uttalanden (2014) · instrumental ensemble

Paulo Ferreira-Lopes (PFL0014)
Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (2020) · instrumental ensemble and electronics

The 5th on-line Meeting · Portuguese Music Perspectives · Network Cooperation, will take place in the second half of January. This initiative follows the previous four Meetings which gathered 40 participants – including the representatives of 27 Portugueses Entities dedicated to invention and research music, and the members of the MIC.PT Scientific Board. These Meetings, organised by the Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre, have started the development of an informal network, whose participants discuss ideas and concrete solutions to improve in mid and long term the situation of invention and research music in Portugal and consequently of its composers.
All the Entities form the area of invention and research music in Portugal, which would like to integrate this informal network and to participate in the Meetings organised by the MIC.PT, are welcome communicate their interest via e-mail: mic[at]mic.pt.