The Portuguese Guitar and Mandolin Orchestra, conducted by Fernando Marinho, will premiere the work String Theory (2025) by Ângela da Ponte (a composer published by the MIC.PT) on February 9 at the Ribeiro Conceição Theatre in Lamego. Inspired by the string theory, here Ângela da Ponte creates ‘a sonic immersive cosmos, where multiple resonances emerge from the dynamic interaction between the instrumental groups and electronics’. In the programme notes on the Orchestra’s website, the composer also talks about the premisses of the string theory: ‘Many physicians believe that vibrating strings are the fundamental particles of the universe. Their oscillations give origin to everything we know. In this theory, the universe is woven with hidden dimensions and harmonic patterns exceeding the limits of perception.’ Additionally, on the 28th, two more of Ângela da Ponte’s works will be presented in Ponte de Lima (Fernandes Fão Academy) and Portimão (TEMPO). They are, respectively: Ao longe meu pai dizia... (2019) by the saxophonist Ricardo Pires and Fontana Mirabilis (premiere) by the University of Évora Percussion Group (the Uma Gota de Água no Mundo show).

The premiere of the work Esta cantiga (2024) for wind ensemble and percussion, by Daniel Moreira (a composer published by the MIC.PT), will occur on February 23 at the José Lúcio da Silva Theatre, during the 3rd Leiria – Creative City of Music Festival. The programme of this concert, with the Municipal Philharmonic Association Ensemble conducted by Alberto Roque, will also include works by regional composers (Sílvia Teles and Carlos Cruz), the Spanish composer José Alamá, and Lino Guerreiro and Rui Penha (two other composers published by the MIC.PT). The entire Festival programme (February 21-23) will include premieres of various works dedicated to the theme of Freedom(s), also addressed by Daniel Moreira in the piece Esta cantiga. In the 2020 MIC.PT interview, the composer said: ‘Music has different meanings. I don’t think that a given piece has a fixed or necessary meaning. It depends on the context of the one who listens and performs and where and when the performance occurs. Music isn’t only the sound circulating in the air. It is an interpretative act emerging from the interaction between the culturally situated listener’s body and mind and the sonic trigger.’

The solo bassoon piece Arabesco (2007) by Fátima Fonte (a composer published by the MIC.PT) is part of the Jardim Aberto – Compositoras concert, an initiative of the São Carlos National Theatre, which will occur on February 8 at the Bernardo Sassetti Hall at the São Luiz Municipal Theatre in Lisbon. The Jardim Aberto cycle continues the Foyer Aberto programming, where the musicians of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra and the São Carlos National Theatre Choir present themselves in small ensembles, giving evidence of their virtuosity as solo musicians. Apart from Fátima Fonte’s work, on the 8th, Irma Skenderi (viola), Roberto Erculiani (bassoon) and Jill Lawson (piano) will also perform pieces by Anne Victorino d’Almeida and Sofia Gubaidulina. Additionally, Fátima Fonte’s work Bilhete-postal a Alexandre Pinheiro Torres (2019) is part of the new CD OUTONALMA by the Tágide Duo, with Inês Simões (soprano) and Daniel Godinho (piano). Released at the end of 2024, the CD also includes pieces by António Chagas Rosa, Fernando C. Lapa, Paulo Bastos and Vasco Mendonça.

In February, two works by the composer Fernando C. Lapa (published by the MIC.PT) will have their performances in Spain and Portugal, including the Azores. Isabel Samartin and Artur Caldeira will perform Suite Doiro (2010) for two guitars at the Convergences Portugal/ Galicia festival. The first performance will occur on the 3rd at the Professional Music Conservatory in Santiago de Compostela. Then, on the 14th, the musicians will perform this piece again at the Noble Hall of the University of Minho. Meanwhile, the series of concerts promoted by the João Roiz Ensemble entitled Escutar o Tempo will occur in the Azores between February 14 and 16. This series will feature works by several Portuguese composers, including Fernando C. Lapa, Anne Victorino d’Almeida, César Viana, Eurico Carrapatoso, Tiago Derriça and Eduardo Luís Patriarca (also a composer published by the MIC.PT). In this context, the João Roiz Ensemble will perform Fernando C. Lapa’s Suite Raiana (2019) for clarinet and string quartet in Angra do Heroísmo on the 14th and the 15th, respectively, at the Casa do Sal and the Lar Doce Livro bookshop.

Hugo Vasco Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT) on electronics, together with the viola player Trevor McTait, will present the Sonic Figures Project on February 6 and 21, respectively, at the José Saramago Foundation in Lisbon and the Sonoscopia association in Porto. The premise of the Sonic Figures Project ‘consists of listening to and mediating silent sonic environments, involving experimentation, reflection, collaboration and creation’, says Hugo Vasco Reis. The project ‘reflects on perception and memory, inciting a new sonic awareness of the “absent” reality in which we all live. Following an approach that includes metaphorical associations, one projects a sonic horizon of intention, speculation and subjectivity. Here, a drop of water can be more audible than a waterfall.’

In February, two works by Igor C. Silva (a composer published by the MIC.PT) will have their performances in Lisbon and Brussels. In this sense, on February 3, the Drumming Mallet Quartet, with Pedro Góis, André Dias, João M. Braga Simões and Miquel Bernat, will perform the work Sweet Data (no amnesia) (2018) for percussion and electronics. This concert at the Orient Museum in Lisbon will also include works by Carlos Guedes, Ivana Ognjanović, Luís Tinoco and Vasco Mendonça. In the second half of the month, more precisely on the 23rd and 24th, at the Centre for Fine Arts, also known as BOZAR, the ICTUS Ensemble will perform Igor C. Silva’s work for kalimba and electronics In Case of Change (2020), in the context of The Sonic Assistance Agency project dedicated to teen audiences.

The electroacoustic work Fluxus, pas trop haut dans ciel (2017) by Jaime Reis (a composer published by the MIC.PT) is part of the concert Night Flight – A Night on Acousmatic Music on February 18 at the University of California in Santa Barbara (USA). The programme of this concert, organised by João Pedro Oliveira (a composer published by the MIC.PT), will also include pieces by Clemens von Reusner, Curtis Roads, Federico Schumacher, Mario Mary, and João Pedro Oliveira’s N’vi’ah (2019). Additionally, Jaime Reis will initiate the community creation project – Sound Bodies II (DME Project and Lisboa Incomum) in February. In the first phase, the participants will create and explore diverse sounds through the ‘sound body’ conceived from a piano skeleton. The result of these sessions, conducted by the violinist Beatriz Costa and Jaime Reis, will be a new performance installation. In the second phase, one will constitute a database with recordings made during the creation sessions. These will serve as a prime-matter for Jaime Reis to compose a new acousmatic piece.

The acousmatic work by João Castro Pinto (a composer published by the MIC.PT), Circumsphere: to Bounce & Rebounce (2024), is one of the pieces selected within the international call of the Ars Electronica Forum Wallis 2025 festival (Switzerland), which received 274 works, from 39 countries. The festival organisation will determine, until April 10, the programme of the 26 selected pieces, either at the Forum Wallis 2025 Festival (May 28 and 29, in Münster/ Goms, Switzerland) or at the Ars Acusmatica electronic music concert series (more information available soon). Premiered lat year in May at Música Viva Festival Miso Music Portugal, Circumsphere: to Bounce & Rebounce «is an immersion into the sonic and musical richness of spherical objects (marbles, rubber/ ping pong balls, wooden spheres and styrofoam). The aim was to explore sonically and musically the physical and phenomenological quality evident in the idea of “roundness”, a kind of acousmatic circumnavigation through a cartography of movement», reveals João Castro Pinto in the programme notes.

In January, the Espaço Crítica para a Nova Música published two new texts (in Portuguese) by Pedro Boléo – Horizontes sónicos para o Aniversário da Arte and Um novíssimo ponto de fuga. In the first review, the author writes about the Art’s Birthday 2025 – Euroradio Ars Acustica Special Evening in the framework of which Hugo Vasco Reis (composition and electronics) and Trevor McTait (viola) presented the Sonic Figures Project on January 17 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. In the second text, Pedro Boléo reflects on the concert given by the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group and Rui Pinheiro (conductor) on January 19 at the Casa da Música Jorge Peixinho (Montijo). The concert programme included works by Ângela da Ponte (premiere of Punto di Fuga), Joly Braga Santos and Jorge Peixinho.

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 15, 2025, at 11h59 p.m. (GMT).

The Lajes do Pico Municipality and the Lajes do Pico Choral Group, in partnership with the Portuguese Music Research and Information Centre – MIC.PT promote the 5th Manuel Emílio Porto National Composition Prize. Manuel Emílio Porto was a fundamental and artistically extraordinary figure in the musical and choral universe of the Azores. In this sense, the Lajes do Pico Municipality has taken the initiative to organise this competition to encourage the creation of new works for the choir and, simultaneously, to valorise Portuguese language. The competition is directed at Portuguese composers who reside or do not reside in Portugal and foreign composers who have resided in Portugal for more than two years. There are two categories, Mixed Choir and White Voices, and the jury is composed of Christopher Bochmann, Jorge Matta, and Hildeberto Peixoto. The deadline for submitting works is April 6, 2025.

The applications for the 8th edition of the Accordion Composition Prize, an initiative by the Folefest Association, are open until July 18. 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 (for accordion solo or accordion with electronica) must be unedited. The prize’s organisers reserve the right to realise the premieres of the awarded works. The prize’s jury comprises Amílcar Vasques-Dias (composer), Ângela da Ponte (composer) and Paulo Jorge Ferreira (accordionist/ composer and jury president).

With the aim to encourage the creation and diffusion of new acousmatic/ electroacoustic works, Miso Music Portugal promotes and organises the 26th International Electroacoustic Composition Competition – Música Viva 2025. The deadline for the works’ submission is July 31, 2025 (11h59 p.m., Lisbon time) and the results will be announced on October 31, 2025. The presentation of the winning work, diffused via the Miso Music Portugal’s Loudspeaker Orchestra, will occur in December, 2025, in the context of the Short Circuit Festival in Lisbon. The jury of the 26th International Electroacoustic Composition Competition – Música Viva 2025 will be announced shortly.

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.