This January the MIC.PT In Focus section presents a new Questionnaire/ Interview with António Ferreira, to mark the 60th anniversary of this composer essentially dedicated to electroacoustic/ acousmatic music, as well as a specialist in acoustics, bioacoustics, and sound pollution.
Born in 1963 in Angola, António Ferreira studied Chemical Engineering at the Higher Technical Institute in Lisbon, as well as Electroacoustic Composition at the Institute of Sonology based at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague in the Netherlands. Presently, having the listening as his main ‘instrument’, he dedicates himself entirely to the sound and all of its aspects: musical, philosophical, historical, and acoustic. As a composer António Ferreira has presented his music in Portugal and in international contexts, having also released various CD albums with his original music. He has also received awards and mentions in the framework of different national and international competitions. As an acoustics consultant and expert, he has carried out innumerable studies on the ambiental impacts of noise. In this sense he has published and presented various communications at international conferences, in collaboration with prof. Bento Coelho and prof. Manuel Eduardo dos Santos, on bioacoustics, submarine acoustics, and sound pollution.
This month visit the MIC.PT In Focus section to (re)discover the music, the creative universe, and the thought of António Ferreira.

On January 28 Cândido Lima will participate in the cycle Memories from the Colonial War in Africa, organised by the Mário Cláudio Centre in Paredes de Coura. In the context of this meeting this composer published by the MIC.PT, who was a Junior Officer in Guinea-Bissau (Bolama Island), will present a ‘short story in sounds and images’, A Piano at the Colonial War – a Trojan Horse. ‘This is a surreal and unprecedented story – a journey of a piano from Viana de Castelo to Guinea, at the time when I was in the military’ – said Cândido Lima in the MIC.PT interview from May 2019. The stories of this particular journey of the piano, and of the composer's transatlantic journeys between Portugal and Africa, have been evoked in the two works: HÉAMAÓAMAÉH-sulcos.silêncios (2007) for 17 instrumentalists and ODE AO TEJO-regresso de um piano de guerra (2018-2019) for ensemble and electronics. ‘Throughout the years one made some allusions to the story of the piano... In 2007 Casa da Música invited me to write the work HÉAMAÓAMAÉH, an evocation of my journey on the UÍGE ship. In the work ODE AO TEJO commissioned by the Miso Music Portugal, I wanted to highlight the journey of the upright piano. It was in 1966... and the return in 1968’ – remembers Cândido Lima.

The work Piece with a View (2018) by Diogo Alvim will be performed in the context of the New Year's Recital by the organist Cláudio de Pina, on January 8 at the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda Church in Lisbon. The programme of this concert will also include the music by César Viana, Ivan Moody, Arvo Pärt, and György Ligeti. ‘Piece with a View is to be played from a graphic score based on a view of a square in central Lisbon’ – says Diogo Alvim in the programme note. And he continues: ‘The performer is asked to interpret this graphic translation of a place in all of its possible connotations – from the spacious sky crossed by sparse cloud lines, the wavy roof edge perhaps suggesting an ascending trill, the small person as a cluster or a bird as a note. The possibilities are multiple, but not infinite as the particular view suggests a specific urban setting, a context and a perspective that set the atmosphere in which to dwell’. Additionally, on January 28 at the National Ancient Art Museum in Lisbon, the DME Ensemble will premiere the work Posição Relativa (2022) for flute, clarinet, percussion, violin, and cello by this composer published by the MIC.PT. The programme of this concert entitled Esplorazioni, will also include the music of Aldo Clementi, Giacinto Scelsi, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Valerio Sannicandro.

Two works by Isabel Soveral (composer published by the MIC.PT) will be presented this month in Nice (France), and Lisbon. On January 5, at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional Pierre Cochereau, in the context of the Les Mots et la Musique concert, the Performa Ensemble will perform the piece Le Navigateur du Soleil Incandescent – Première Lettre (2016) for flute & piano (to the poetry of Al Berto). The second work, Fragmentos (2019) for piano & cello, is included in the programme of the Duo Sigma's concert, which will take place on January 20 at the National Music Museum in Lisbon. ‘My work is influenced by visual arts. I associate colours and sounds, and this association becomes the formal principle in the composition. Sometimes the inspiration for a new work emerges from a text. This work can give origin to other ones taking me back to the initial texts, or to other texts by the same author, or still to texts by other authors on the same subject’ – said Isabel Soveral to the MIC.PT in May 2021.

The work Fluxus, Vortex – Schubkraft (2019) for guitar quartet and electronics by Jaime Reis, will be performed by the Aleph Guitar Quartet (Andrés Hernández Alba, Tillmann Reinbeck, Wolfgang Sehringer, and Christian Wernicke) on January 14 at the ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medien (Kubus) in Karlsruhe (Germany). The programme of this concert entitled Durch die Ohren von..., and whose sound spatialisation will be realised by Jaime Reis, also includes the music of José María Sánchez Verdú and Zeynep Gedizlioğlu. The work Fluxus, Vortex – Schubkraft was commissioned to Jaime Reis by the ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe and the Aleph Guitar Quartet. Additionally, the piece Sigma.Cobre (2021-2022) for cello & piano by this composer published by the MIC.PT, will be performed by the Sigma Duo (Ana Cláudia Assis, piano; Miguel Rocha, cello) in the context of the Mémoire...Mirroir concert, on January 20 at the National Music Museum in Lisbon.

Blown Off Course is the title of the new opera by Pedro Rebelo (composer published by the MIC.PT), with libretto by Glenn Patterson, which will be premiered at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon in the first half of this month. The opera Blown Off Course, a commission by the Miso Music Portugal with the support of the Queen's University Belfast, explores the relationships between Portugal and Japan through language, music, and food, recounting the chance meeting of Hana, a Japanese woman, and of Valentim, a Portuguese man, in both the 16th century and today. These encounters are a result of a ship (16th Century) and a plane (today) blown off course by the force of the Wind (the narrator). Six centuries apart, these interactions develop relationships through the exchange of sounds, words and food traditions. The opera Blown Off Course will presented on January 12, 13 and 14, and it will be performed by: Camila Mandillo (soprano · Hana), André Henriques (baritone · Valentim), Miguel Azguime (speaker · Wind), Vicente Viriato (cook · Chef), Kiku Day (shakuhachi); and by the musicians of the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble: Sílvia Cancela (flute), Nuno Pinto (clarinet), João Dias (percussion), Francisco Cabrita (piano), Vítor Vieira (violin), and Luís André Ferreira (cello).

The piece Episódio de intervalo III (2022) for flute, saxophone, and piano by Sara Carvalho (composer published by the MIC.PT), will be presented by the Performa Ensemble (Jorge Salgado Correia, flute; Henrique Portovedo, saxophone; Helena Marinho, piano) on January 5 at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional Pierre Cochereau in Nice (France). This concert, entitled Les Mots et la Musique, will also include the participation of the actress Joana Carvalho, and Sara Carvalho will moderate the conversation between the audience and the artists on the stage. The programme will also include the music of Isabel Soveral (composer published by the MIC.PT), Ana Tavares, Francisco Ribeiro, Jônatas Manzolli, and Luís Tinoco. ‘My writing has always had an extramusical source as a starting point. At the beginning it happened in an unconscious and loosely structured manner. There are lots of extramusical sources that I use in composition, for example literature. I like to read, discovering the way how authors join the words, to develop different meanings depending on the context. And this is in a certain way what I try to do with my music – elaborating timbres and sonorities in different contexts, within search for my own sound world’ – said Sara Carvalho in the MIC.PT interview from December 2014.

Following the tradition of the previous years, on January 17 the Miso Music Portugal and the Antena 2 join the Euroradio (EBU) for the Art's Birthday 2023. The Art’s Birthday – 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 had been born exactly 1.000.000 before, when somebody had dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water! The concert broadcast from Lisbon will take place at the O'culto da Ajuda. There the soprano Camila Mandillo and the trumpet player João Silva will give a recital whose programme will include works by the two composers published by the MIC.PT: Miguel Azguime's Aliterações de água (2017) for soprano and electronics, and Rui Penha's No Man Is an Island (2014) for ad libitum wind instrument and electronics. In the context of this concert João Silva will also perform his own work (Demens for trumpet and electronics), and Camila Mandillo will perform the music of Cathy Berberian e Georges Aperghis. In the recital's final the two musicians will join to present Mert Morali's piece, Die Produktion des Bewusstseins.

On January 20 at the National Music Museum in Lisbon, the Sigma Duo, constituted by the pianist Ana Cláudia Assis and the cellist Miguel Rocha, will give a recital entirely dedicated to contemporary music created in Portugal. In this sense the programme of this concert entitled Mémoire...Mirroir, will include works by various composers published by the MIC.PT: Carlos Marecos (O Carro de Jorge Peixinho), Eduardo Luís Patriarca (...suddenly, this silence...), Isabel Soveral (Fragmentos), Jaime Reis (Sigma.Cobre), João Pedro Oliveira (Absence... mémoire); and also a piece by Mariana Vieira (Dual).

As the Portuguese Section of the ISCM – International Society for Contemporary Music, in December the Miso Music Portugal/ MIC.PT has submitted for the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series four works by the composers active and residing in Portugal: by Ângela da Ponte We can’t breathe (2021), for flute and electronics; by Filipe Esteves Alburrica (2021-2022), electroacoustic work; by Patrícia Sucena de Almeida Instabile Tempus (2016), for five instruments and scenic space; and by Pedro Pinto Figueiredo Amini (2022), for two flutes (bass and alto). Created in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ISCM Virtual Collaborative Series aims at increasing and fomenting the online presence and visibility of contemporary music, including the social networks.

Since the beginning of January two new In the 1st Person Interviews (in Portuguese) – with the composers António Chagas Rosa and António Ferreira –, are available on the MIC.PT YouTube Channel.
Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 24 New Interviews to composers residing in Portugal, realised since 2019; as well as eight Interviews from the MIC.PT Archive, realised between 2003 and 2005.
The New Interviews, conducted by Pedro Boléo, were filmed at the O'culto da Ajuda in Lisbon and realised in the context of the In the 1st Person cycle of the Music Today and Research & Invention Music radio broadcasts, produced by the MIC.PT and Miso Music Portugal for the Antena 2. They constitute a (re)visit to the creative universe of various composers published by the MIC.PT, following the Historical Interviews recorded by the MIC.PT almost 15 years ago. Today they are unique registers of the artistic evolution of each interviewed composer.
In order to access the Interviews (in Portuguese) follow the links below or visit the MIC.PT YouTube Channel.