Manhã Moça (2024) for solo guitar is the new work by Amílcar Vasques-Dias (a composer published by the MIC.PT) dedicated to the guitarist Yuri Marchese, who will premiere it on December 13 at the Ponto de Guitarra VIII – Guitar Festival of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro. At this concert, In homage to Amílcar Vasques-Dias, at the Municipal Theatre in Vila Real, the o Lopes-Graça Quartet will also perform the work Prelúdio à Sesta das Cigarras, which Amílcar Vasques-Dias composed in 2010 and dedicated to this quartet constituted by Luís Pacheco Cunha (violin), Eliot Lawson (violin), Isabel Pimentel (viola) and Catherine Strynckx (cello). ‘At this concert, we will present a chamber music programme by mostly still living authors, emphasising the guitar’, say the organisers. Apart from Amílcar Vasques-Dias’s music, this programme will include works by Eli Camargo Júnior (composer published by the MIC.PT), Leo Brower, Carlos Guastavino and Fernando Lopes-Graça.

Ângela da Ponte (a composer published by the MIC.PT) received the first award at the 1st Alvaro García de Zúñiga International Lied Composition Competition for the work Da keine Worte nur Töne (2024) for soprano, flute and electronics, with the text by Alvaro García de Zúñiga – writer, director and Portuguese composer of Uruguay origin. This competition is a joint initiative by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble, Casa de Mateus Foundation and the blablaLab Cultural Association. It aims to encourage the creation and performance of new music works with voice. The competition’s jury comprised Iris ter Schiphorst (German composer), Philippe Leroux (French composer) and Miguel Azguime (a composer published by the MIC.PT). Additionally, Ângela da Ponte’s work Ao desconcerto do mundo (2014), based on Luís Vaz de Camões’s poem, will have its performance at the Diz-Concerto by the Sond’Ar-te conducted by Pedro Neves, on the 21st at the Camacho Costa Cine Theatre in Odemira.

The work Procissão (2016) for wind band by Carlos Caires (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have its performance on December 7 at the João d’Oliva Monteiro Cine Theatre in Alcobaça. At this concert, promoted by the Cistermúsica (Fronteiras cycle) and entitled Olhar o Futuro, the Alcobaça Symphonic Band under the baton of Rui Carreira will also perform works by Alex Shapiro, Catherine Likhuta, John Philip Sousa, John Williams and Philip Sparke. Organised by the ABA – Alcobaça Band Arts Association, with the support of Direção-Geral das Artes, the Cistermúsica presents an annual season with some of the most renowned musicians at national and international level. To close the Fronteiras cycle, the band will present a programme of themes reflecting on the future from various perspectives.

The theatre piece Na República da Felicidade with music by Carlos Alberto Augusto (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have its presentations at the Culture and Congress Centre in Caldas da Rainha between December 6 and 13. Martin Crimp is the author of this play, coproduced by the Teatro da Rainha and the São João National Theatre, with direction and stage design by Fernando Mora Ramos. It is ‘one of Martin Crimp’s angriest pieces. Here, it’s useless to find a consoling vision of happiness and democracy, two ideas evoked in the title’, as one can read on the CCC website. The music for the piece Na República da Felicidade by Carlos Alberto Augusto, a composer with vast experience in music for theatre, includes seven songs and music he produces and executes.

Ressonâncias líquidas is Filipe Esteves’s piece included in the concert cycle Short Circuit – Live Electronic and Acousmatic Music, on December 6 and 7 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. The work by this composer (published by the MIC.PT) is part of the Sons Interiores / Interior dos Sons cycle from 2024 and premiered in May at the Música Viva Festival. Filipe Esteves reveals that this cycle is a counterpart to his first monographic CD, Sul e Sueste (Miso Records, 2021). ‘If, in that one, the theme was the city “soundscape”, in this one, the idea emerged from a domestic environment, from intentional listening to sound sources, which one tends to obliterate or ignore daily, either because they are almost inaudible or due to their permanence and vulgarity.’ Short Circuit – Live Electronic and Acousmatic Music allows to experience music made of synthesised, altered, recorded or arranged sounds. Each concert of this two-day cycle will include two acousmatic pieces and performances of musicians in duos or solo. At the centre of the stage one will find loudspeakers, sythesizers, theremins and other machines.

A concert with various works by Fernando C. Lapa (a composer published by the MIC.PT) for guitar duo, trio, and guitar and flute will occur on December 7 at the Municipal Theatre in Vila Real. The programme of this concert, part of the Ponto de Guitarra VII Festival and performed by Francisco Berény, Hugo Simões and Rita Barbosa (guitars), and Monika Streitová (flute), will include four works: Itinerários (1999) for guitar duo, Três ou quatro notas para Florbela (2012) for flute and guitar, and, for guitar trio, Suite Alentejana n.º 1 (2022) and Como se canta o fogo, o mar e o som dos barcos (2010). Then, on the 14th, the perfromance of the work Aurora – ópera para uma epopeia dos tempos modernos (2024) with Eduarda Freitas’s libretto, whose music composition results from the collaboration between Fernando C. Lapa, Tomás Marques and Telmo Marques, will occur at the Municipal Theatre in Bragança. Finally, the 2001 work Para um Natal Português (sobre melodias tradicionais) for choir and orchestra, will be have its performance at the Solidarity Christmas Concert, on the 21st at the São Francisco Convent in Coimbra.

The installation New Old Technologies #1 by Filipe Lopes (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will be on display between December 5 and 7 during #23.ART – International Art and Technology Meeting at the School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute in Porto. At this meeting, Filipe Lopes will also continue the divulgation of the instrument he developed, which he already presented at the 3rd Music, Technology and Research Meeting – an initiative of the Portuguese Music Research and Information Centre (MIC.PT) curated by the composer Isabel Soveral, and hosted last September at the DeCA (University of Aveiro), in the context of the Permanent Seminar by the INET-md Creation, Performance and Artistic Research Group. Filipe Lopes’s presentation title is Gaia: building an electroacoustic music instrument as a reflection on music, nature and technology. ‘Gaia is an original, portable and autonomous electroacoustic instrument, built around the idea to articulate its performance mode in real-time with the surrounding space, particularly, wild environments’, says the composer in the introduction to his presentation.

In December, Hugo Vasco Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will participate in activities in Portugal. After three concerts in Switzerland, the Tatealidade project returns to Portugal for two more concerts in Porto (Presidencial) and Guarda (Teatro do CalaFrio), on the 3rd and 4th, respectively. The programme of these concerts includes five of Hugo Vasco Reis’s works for Portuguese guitar, viola, object and electronics, performed by the composer and Rita Maria Jurt. Then, on the 7th and 9th, at the Castelo de Paiva Music Academy and the University of Aveiro (DeCA), respectively, Hugo Vasco Reis will present his new CD Dimensions, in the format of lecture and discussion. Already available on digital platforms, Dimensions is a cycle of four works for solo acoustic instruments and electronics. The discourse of each work is constructed through the characterisation of the space and sound, where the structuring narratives coexist with the more undetermined ones. The album’s supporters are, the Ministry of Culture in Portugal, SPA, Lisbon Municipality, Antena 2, and the Zurich University of the Arts.

In December, Jaime Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have three works presented in Portugal and Belgium. The first piece, Magistri Mei: Bach (2020), is part of the Ruins on My Chest concert organised and performed by the Coletivo Phoebus. The concert will occur on December 6 at the Estação Memorial in Fafe. Then, on December 11, a concert at the Évora Contemporary Music Festival 2024 will occur at the Mirror Hall of the Arts School at the University of Évora, and its programme will include Jaime Reis’s electroacoustic work Phonopolis, composed between 2003 and 2004. Another electroacoustic composition by this composer, Corpos Sonoros I: Reencarnação created in 2023, will have its Belgian premiere at the Fondation Annette Vande Gorne concert on December 18 at the Le Senghor – Centre Culturel d’Etterbeek in Brussels (Belgium). At this concert, where Jaime Reis will be responsible for the spatialisation of his work, the young Portuguese composer Marta Domingues will also present the world premiere of her work, A Cathartic Postcard (2024).

Circumsphere: To Bounce & Rebounce (2024), the most recent acousmatic work by João Castro Pinto (a composer published by the MIC.PT), is one of the selected pieces in the context of the international call for acousmatic works released by the Italian publisher Empirica Records/ Associazione Mid Side. In this sense, the work will have its performance either in the context of the 4th edition of the REF – Resilience Festival 2024, occurring between December 6 and 15 in Foggia (Italy), or at the events of the CONTEMPORANEA 2025 season, organised by the MID SIDE Aps (Associazione di Promozione Sociale). Premiered in May in the framework of the the Música Viva 2024 Festival, Circumsphere: to Bounce & Rebounce ‘emerges into the sonic and musical richness of spherical objects (marbles, rubber/ping pong balls, wooden and styrofoam spheres). The aim was to sonically and musically explore the physical and phenomenological quality patent in the idea of “roundness”, a kind of acousmatic circumnavigation through a cartography of movement’, reveals João Castro Pinto in the programme notes.

The work Shades of White (2023), for violin and minimal electronics, by Luís Neto da Costa (a composer published by the MIC.PT), will have its German premiere on December 3 at the BKA Theater in Berlin. At this concert entitled Violin +, the violinist Dejana Sekulić will also perform the premiere of her piece Dnuos ni Rorrim (2024), as well as the music of Alessandro Perini, Anahita Abbasi, Clara Iannotta, Julie Michael, Sarah Nemtsov and Wojtek Blecharz. The work Shades of White is a commission by the DME Project, and Luís Neto da Costa worked on it with Dejana Sekulić during the residency last year in May at the Lisboa Incomum. This composition ‘creates a live conversation between the physical and the artificial I, the past and the present, through a quadraphonic canon where the listener can easily lose the notion of what and who is alive, what repeats, directs and follows, and in which order things occur’, indicate the programme notes on the Lisboa Incomum website.

Two works by Mariana Vieira (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have their performances this month in Riba d’Ave and Évora. The first one, String Quartet no. 1 (20103), is part of the concert that the ars ad hoc (Matilde Loureiro and Diogo Coelho, violins; Francisco Lourenço, viola; Gonçalo Lélis, cello) will give on December 8 at the Narciso Ferreira Theatre (Riba d’Ave). The second work is the acousmatic composition O Encontro Inesperado do Diverso (2021), whose presentation will occur at the Évora Contemporary Music Festival 2024, on the 11th at the Colégio Mateus d’Aranda. Regarding the String Quartet no. 1, commissioned by the Arte no Temo, Mariana Vieira says the initial idea resulted from a variation on a crescendo and a sudden break. The composer confesses having challenged herself to face a recurring difficulty – the capacity to generate new material from pre-existing ideas instead of constantly generating utterly new material.

The electroacoustic piece she being Brand (2010–2014) by Miguel Azguime (a composer published by the MIC.PT) is part of the programme of the cycle Short Circuit – Live Electronic and Acousmatic Music, on December 6 and 7 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. ‘she being Brand responds to the challenge of confronting music and eroticism’, says Miguel Azguime in the programme notes. And he continues: ‘I took as a starting point an erotic poem by E. E. Cummings, and asked Frances M. Lynch and David Moss to perform it freely. Then, I added mine to their versions and composed a three-voice development following the poem’s form. I also used other concrete and vocal sounds, but my main interest was to develop synthetic electronics mimicries simulating vocal sounds associated with human sexual pleasure.’

Pedro M. Rocha (a composer published by the MIC.PT) finished the composition of the cycle Vislumbres de Ascensão (2018–2024), constituted by four pieces for pre-recorded sounds and one of each of the bowed string instruments, in September. The composer began this cycle in 2018 with pieces for violin and double bass commissioned by the Arte no Tempo Association. Pedro M. Rocha finished the cycle by composing the cello and viola pieces in 2024. The presentation of Vislumbres de Ascensão will occur on December 13 and 14, in the context of two commented concerts, Os Compositores e a Academia, at the Tomás Borba Hall of the Music Amateurs Academy in Lisbon. The performers of these concerts will be Manuel Ferrer (violin), Johann Velislav Pereira (viola), Teresa Araújo (cello) and Luísa Marcelino (double bass).

Works by five Portuguese composers (published by the MIC.PT) are part of the Diz-Concerto by the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble on December 21 at the Camacho Costa Cine Theatre in Odemira. The works are: João Madureira’s Toc, Toc, Toc (2009), with Hélia Correia’s text; Daniel Martinho’s Sonho (2015), with Fernando Pessoa’s poem; Ângela da Ponte’s Ao desconcerto do mundo (2014), with Luís Vaz de Camões’s poem; Sofia Sousa Rocha’s Fala do velho do Restelo ao astronauta (2014), with José Saramago’s poem; and Pedro Rebelo’s Quando Eu Nasci (2011), with Isabel Minhós Martins’s text. With maestro Pedro Neves, Miguel Azguime and Jade Mandillo as speakers, the Diz-Concerto is a unique experience combining music and poetry within an intimate music and stage space.

On December 7 and 8, the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group (GMCL) will give two concerts in Italy, in the context of the Trieste Prima – Incontri Internazionali con la Musica Contemporanea, respectively at the Auditorium of the Giuseppe Tartini Music Conservatory in Trieste and the Auditorium of the Music School in Codropio. At these concerts, conducted by Adriano Martinolli d’Arcy, the GMCL will present works by various composers published by the MIC.PT: Pedro e Inês from Dor e Amor (2009) by Carlos Marecos, El vaso reluciente (2003) by Clotilde Rosa, Momento I (1974) by Constança Capdeville, Ulivi Aspri e Forti I (1982) and Silenciosa Rosa (1984) by Jorge Peixinho. The concert also includes Ana Seara’s, Corrado Rojac’s and Eurico Carrapatoso’s compositions.

The DME Project promotes the special edition of its annual festival, occurring between December 4 and 7 in the Serra da Estrela region. This edition celebrates a significant historical event: the 80th anniversary of electroacoustic music, highlighting one of the most important episodes of this music genre – the creation of The Expression of Zaar by Halim El-Dabh in 1944, considered the first ever electroacoustic music piece. The initiatives organised and promoted by the DME Project within this festival include concerts, artistic residencies and a young composers’ competition (Nano Músicos Electroacústicos). Additionally, the festival’s programme will comprise works by various composers published by the MIC.PT: António de Sousa Dias, Constança Capdeville and Nuno Peixoto de Pinho.

Produced by the DME Project and co-organised by the Arts School of the University of Évora, the Évora Contemporary Music Festival 2024 will occur between December 10 and 12. The event will begin with a commemorative day, paying tribute to the professor, conductor and composer Jean-Sébastien Béreau. The festival’s second day will feature a concert marking the inauguration of a new electroacoustic music studio at the Arts School of the University of Évora. The final concert will gather the students from the José Luís Ferreira Mixed Music Lab (ESML) and the UÉ Music Department. The festival’s programme will include works by various composers published by the MIC.PT: Jaime Reis, João Pedro Oliveira and Mariana Vieira.

In November, the Espaço Crítica para a Nova Música published a new text (in Portuguese) by Pedro Boléo – Oddities e outras estranhezas. In this review the author writes about two concerts, with the Nada Contra Duo (Francisco Cipriano, percussion; Mrika Sefa, piano and keyboards) and with the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group under the baton of Joan Pagés Valls, that took place on November 23 in the framework of the CROMA – Oeiras Contemporary Music Cycle (an initiative by the APC – Portuguese Association of Composers).

MPMP Património Musical Vivo, with the support of the Ministry of Culture/ Direção-Geral das Artes, announces the sixth edition of the Musa Prize, created to distinguish musical excellence in contemporary composition within the classical tradition and promote the Portuguese language as an expressive vehicle. The Musa Prize is open to composers of any age or nationality, and the submitted works must be based on lyrics written by José Mário Branco. Three composers comprise the jury of the Musa Prize 2024: Daniel Moreira, Nuno da Rocha and Sara Ross. The deadline for the score application is February 15th, 2025, at 11h59 p.m. (GMT).

In November the MIC.PT published on the YouTube Channel two new In the 1st Person Interviews (in Portuguese) with the composers Diogo da Costa Ferreira and Luís Neto da Costa. The musicologist and journalist Pedro Boléo conducted these two interviews recorded in 2023 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon.
Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 35 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.