The July In Focus section on the MIC.PT is dedicated to Ivan Moody, a composer, conductor, researcher, and member of the direction of CESEM at the NOVA University of Lisbon, who, in June, would have turned 60 and passed away prematurely at the beginning of this year.
Born in the United Kingdom, Ivan Moody settled in Portugal several decades ago, having developed an intense career as a composer and musicologist. In this context, in 2004-2005, he worked with the Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre. With a PhD from the University of York, Ivan Moody studied Composition with Brian Dennis, Sir John Tavener and William Brooks. As a musicologist, he published texts about music on the Iberian Peninsula, Russia, and the Balkans, as well as contemporary sacred music and music and theology. The spirituality of the Orthodox Church, to which he belonged, and Eastern liturgical chant were fundamental influences in his music, performed, broadcast and recorded worldwide. ‘I have been inevitably categorised as a “holy minimalist”’, Ivan Moody told the MIC.PT in 2014. And he added: ‘I don’t recognise myself in this classification. My music has changed over the years, readmitting, after a period of “austerity”, more complex harmony and more fluid structures.’

The premiere of the work Notebooks (2024) by António Pinho Vargas (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will occur on July 13 at the Cine-Teatro Garrett in the context of the 46th International Music Festival of Póvoa de Varzim. The programme of this concert, performed by the Contemporary Ensemble of Póvoa de Varzim, with Nuno Coelho (conductor) and João Barradas (accordion), will also include the finalist works of the 17th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim, where António Pinho Vargas is the jury president. ‘A music discourse is what the listeners, endowed with their sensitive perception and auditive biography, manage to capture in the moment of listening. In the present phase, there are many premieres and few new interpretations. Therefore, it’s the discourse, which every music composition can create, that conducts the listeners during the work’s temporal unwinding’ – António Pinho Vargas told the MIC.PT in 2021.

The 2nd series of the Sem Fronteiras cycle, divided into three sessions on July 6, 13 and 20 at the Fonoteca Municipal in Porto, includes the presence and participation of Cândido Lima as host and of various guests from the Portuguese artistic environment – Inês Tartaruga Água and Xavier Paes, João Polido e Susana Santos Silva. Each session comprises not only the presentations by the invited musicians followed by a conversation between them and Cândido Lima but also an approach to music themes in the style of his TV programmes, as well as listening moments with works by this composer published by the MIC.PT. The last session will include the premiere of Cândido Lima’s work, SONS EFÉMEROS – abracaradabra (música séria e música de divertimento) (2023) for six percussionists, written for the students of the Music Department at the University of Minho (Braga). This group will realise the piece’s performance.

This July, the Symphonic Band of the Portuguese Public Security Police will premiere the piece Missão: Mudar o Mundo (2024) by Diogo da Costa Ferreira (a composer published by the MIC.PT). This concert marks the beginning of the National Programme that arose from the articulation between the National Arts Plan and the Public Security Police (PSP). The aim of this joint endeavour is the promotion of various educational concerts throughout the country. The performance, scheduled for July 4, will occur at Largo General Humberto Delgado, next to Jardim do Cerco, in Mafra. The event also marks the celebration of the 157th anniversary of the Public Security Police. In addition to the symphonic band, Missão: Mudar o Mundo includes the participation of a narrator. The conductor will be José Ferreira Brito, and the concert with free admission will be supported by RTP – Antena 2 radio.

The most recent acousmatic work by João Castro Pinto (a composer published by the MIC.PT), entitled Circumsphere: To Bounce & Rebounce (2024), integrates the list of finalist works selected in the framework of the International Competition – MA/IN Intermedia and Electroacoustic Music Festival 2024, within the A category (Acousmatic Music). The presentation of the works, organised in collaboration with the CRM (Centro di Ricerche Musicali) in Rome, will occur at the MA/IN partner festival – ArteScienza 2024 – taking place at the Goethe Institute in Rome between July 4 and 14. João Castro Pinto’s work is part of the July 5 concert programme, which also includes the music of Alejandro Albornoz Rojas and Simone Scarazza. From among the selected works, the jury will determine the category winners and the possible honourable mentions, and the awarded works’ performance will be part of the MA/IN 2024 Festival (South of Italy.

Two works by David Miguel (a composer published by the MIC.PT) are part of the In Memoriam concert performed by the Cantar Nosso Choir from Golegã, conducted by maestro Miguel Galhofo. The concert will occur on July 6 at the Matriz Church in Chamusca. The two works are O silêncio (2013) and Soneto do amor e da morte (2014). The In Memoriam concert aims to remember the ones who lost their lives in armed conflicts and transmit a message of peace and reconciliation. Apart from David Miguel‘s pieces, the programme of the In Memoriam concert will also include works by Anton Bruckner, Henry Purcell, Franz Schubert, Josef Rheinberger, Eric Whitacre, Amy Beach, Ola Gjeilo and Karl Jenkins. David Miguel told the MIC.PT in 2019: ‘I have a lot of interest in Renaissance polyphony and the great choral-symphonic works from the Classicism and Romanticism. I admire the subtlety of the Lieder and the systematic thought line of 20th-century composers. Everything that sounds heavy captures my attention. My music doesn’t have to sound like any of these influences or as their mixture. These are, nevertheless, compositional processes and attitudes with which I identify myself.’

Jaime Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have various pieces performed in July and August. On the one hand, his work Sangue Inverso: Quartzo (B) (2024) will premiere at the O Canto das Sementes project (Projecto DME), ‘joining young composers who are in training or have recently graduated from Composition courses in Portugal’. The performer of this piece for instrumental ensemble and electronics will be the Ensemble Barcelona Modern on July 24 at Lisboa Incomum and on the 27th at Municipal Culture House in Seia. On the other hand, Jaime Reis will also be at the International Cervantes Electroacoustic Festival from August 2 to 4 at the Cervantes National Theatre (Buenos Aires, Argentina). In this context, the composer will be part of a masterclass, round table and conference. He will also have two works performed: the acousmatic piece Fluxus, Pas Trop Haut Dans Le Ciel (2017) and Fluxus – Dimensionless Sound [B] (2017) for flute and electronics. Finally, in the first half of August, Jaime Reis will give a lecture at the UNESPAR in Curitiba (Brazil), where a monographic concert with his music will also occur.

The work Kontrol (2019) for percussion and electronics by João Pedro Oliveira (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have its performance on August 3 in Buenos Aires (Argentina) at the Electroacoustic Cervantes International Festival. Additionally, João Pedro Oliveira is one of the featured composers in the context of the Call for Scores by the Ensemble TEMPO (The Epicenter Musical Performance Organization). The composer’s work selected within this Call for the TEMPO 2024-2025 season is Tension-Deformation (2019) for instrumental ensemble. In 2018, João Pedro Oliveira told the MIC.PT: ‘I’m not very interested in music discourse. However, emotion induction is a constant part of my reflection on music. Independently of the metaphors that one can invent to frame the interaction between the music and the listeners, I believe that it becomes useless if one doesn’t provoke emotions in the listener. Each listener is different, so the emotion can result from diverse factors, such as architecture, sonority, produced tension, or suggested images.’

In July and August, Paulo Bastos (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have three pieces performed by two different instrumental groups. On July 6, the L'Effetto Ensemble, composed of the soprano Dora Rodrigues and the guitarist Rui Gama, will perform Canções de Miguel Torga (2016) and La courbe de tes yeux (2022). The concert will occur in Vieira do Minho, in Braga, as part of the Província Sonora Festival. The festival is already underway and will last until July 26. The L’Effetto Ensemble will repeat their performance on the 12th, in Macedo de Cavaleiros, in the Bragança district. The duo will play the same works on July 9 and August 18 as part of the XXII Festival Internazionale di Chitarra, which will occur in Sardinia, Italy. Towards the end of the month, the quartet made up of the Duo Jost Costa (a piano duo led by Yseult Jost and Domingos Costa), Anne Mercier on the violin and Sébastian Paul on the cello, will perform Paulo Bastos’ work Bucolicae (2019) on July 20 at the 14th Percursos da Música Festival in Ponte de Lima.

Ricardo Matosinhos (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will be one of the guests of the Brumov Horn Summer Course, which will occur in the Czech Republic between July 28 and August 3. This course offers the participants a wide range of activities. Czech and foreign professors will guide them, and the whole week includes individual, chamber music and orchestral lessons, and an alternative programme – monastery tours, meditations, interactive tours at the medieval monastery, and horn exhibition, as mentioned on the course’s official website. In the context of this course, three works by the composer for solo horn will have their performance at the teachers’ concert on the final day: Pastoral op. 81 (2019), Mirage op. 83 (2019) and Improviso op. 82 (2019). Additionally, Ricardo Matosinhos and Jan Vobořil on horns and Jana Goliášová on piano will perform, for the first time in the Czech Republic, the work Fantasia op. 91 for two horns and piano.

The premiere of the piece Concerto for Solo Saxophone and Orchestra After a Naked Lunch by Sara Carvalho (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will occur in July. The presentation of the piece is part of the 3rd European Saxophone Congress, occurring from the 15th to 20th in Trento (Italy). The premiere will occur on the 20th and the performers of Sara Carvalho’s new work will be the Orchestra Filarmonia Veneta, Giovanni Costantin (conductor), and the saxophonist Henrique Portovedo. In 2014, in an interview with the MIC.PT Sara Carvalho shared how she perceives her present, compositional, ‘intuitive and emotional’ approach. ‘It hasn’t always been like this; my approach was very structured and systematic. The formal organisation of ideas always emerged in the first place, almost as a “rule”. Today, it’s different. The manner of approaching an idea always involves a sensory process. My past and future education arises here.’

Organised by the Scientific Council of the Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre (MIC.PT) and curated by the composer Isabel Soveral, the 3rd Meeting on Music, Technology and Research will occur on September 27 at the University of Aveiro. Registration is free. Researchers interested in making a presentation at the 3rd Meeting on Music, Technology and Research should send the completed form to research@mic.pt until September 15, 2024. This event aims to globally contribute to the progress and development of such disciplines as music creation, performance, theory and technology, prioritising subjects connected with contemporary creation and music technology – analysis and theoretical reflection on the creation and performance with electronics. It is a forum for discussion, encouraging music research on various aspects of aesthetic and technical thought in the context of music creation, performance and technology. In this sense, a call is open for works in the following areas: 1) music creation and studio technical formation; 2) music notation of electroacoustic works; 3) music writing and studio creation; 4) development of new technological tools; 5) development of new theoretical tools in the field of electroacoustic music analysis; 6) interaction between acoustic and electronic instruments; 7) spatial configuration as a relevant parameter in the structure of the electronic music narrative. This initiative aims to develop students’ literacy from different education cycles in music creation, focusing on music creation with electronics.

The applications for the 7th edition of the Accordion Composition Prize, an initiative by the Folefest Association, are open until July 5. This competition aims to promote and encourage contemporary classical music creation for accordion, contributing to this repertoire’s qualitative and quantitative development. The Prize’s dedicatees are Portuguese composers, or those residing in Portugal, of any age. The application works (chamber music: accordion + 3-6 instruments) must be unedited. The Prize’s organisers reserve the right to realise the premieres of the awarded works. The Prize’s jury comprises Isabel Soveral (composer), Sérgio Azevedo (composer) and Paulo Jorge Ferreira (accordionist/ composer and jury president).

The submissions for the 3rd edition of the Francisco de Lacerda Millennium BCP Foundation Composition Prize are open until August 1, 2024. The prize promotes national music creation and it focuses on Portuguese or foreign composers living in Portugal. The submitted works must be for a classical orchestra. The compositions must also be unpublished. Their connection to the life and work of Francisco de Lacerda (or to the Azores, the composer’s place of birth) is optional but strongly encouraged. The premiere of the 1st-award-winning work will occur in September 2024 by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra at the National Library of Portugal in Lisbon. The winner will also receive a monetary prize. This year, Vasco Mendonça, Magnus Lindberg, Bernard Foccroulle, and Helen Grime constitute the competition’s jury. At its previous editions, the winners were the composers Samuel Gapp with Still, Unfolding! and Luís Neto da Costa with Ecos de Trovas.

Since the end of May, two new In the 1st Person Interviews (in Portuguese) with the composers Cândido Lima and António Pinho Vargas, conducted by Pedro Boléo and recorded in november 2023 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon, are available on the MIC.PT YouTube Channel.
Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 33 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.