In March, In Focus on MIC.PT features Sofia Sousa Rocha, a composer and teacher at the Calouste Gulbenkian Music Conservatory in Braga. Her most recent projects include cre­ating a piece for wind orchestra for the Internship with the National Wind Orchestra of the Templars (July 2026), and composing a new opera with a libretto by Edward Ayres de Abreu, commissioned by the Braga Sinfonietta. In recent years, Sofia Sousa Rocha has focused her work on exploring the relationship between music and words. In 2014, she composed the piece Fala do velho do Restelo ao astronauta in response to a commission from Sond’Ar-te. This piece is based on the poem of the same name by José Saramago. During the 2017–2018 season, she was an associate composer at the São Carlos National Theatre, where she premiered A verdadeira Hidrostória do Elefonte, a piece for narrator and orchestra. She is also the co-creator of the Informal Opera Festival, the first edition of which, in 2021, featured the premiere of her opera Oráculos & Ladainhas, with a libretto by Tiago Schäwbl. In 2022, Lugar Comum, her opera addressing the theme of violence against women, premiered in Porto. It features a text by Mário João Alves and was per­formed by the Contratempus Quartet under the musical direction of Constança Simas.

The work Da keine Worte nur Töne (2024), by com­poser Ângela da Ponte (published by MIC.PT), will be presented as part of the concert by the trio Sond’Ar-te Três Mulheres, which will take place on March 21 at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. Performed by Camila Mandillo (soprano), Sílvia Cancela (flute) and Elsa Silva (piano), the programme for this concert will also include the premiere of a new composition by Marta Domingues, as well as three pieces by Miguel Azguime (composer published by MIC.PT). Written for soprano, flute and electronics, Ângela da Ponte’s Da keine Worte nur Töne is based on the text by Álvaro García de Zúñiga and was the winner of the first Álvaro García de Zúñiga – Casa de Mateus – Sond’Ar-te Inter­national Lied Composition Competition. In addition, Ângela da Ponte is a member of the jury for the 19th edition of the International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim, for which the deadline for applications is June 3 2026.

The presentation of four recent electroacoustic works cre­ated by António Ferreira (composer pub­lished by MIC.PT), will take place on March 14 at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. Entitled Soundscape with oniric figures, Aeroreality (premiere), Solaristica and La Gloire du Superflu (premiere), these works date from 2025 and were created with the main intention of exploring the various capa­bilities of immersive spatialisation made possible by the Miso Music Portugal’s Loudspeaker Orchestra. All the pieces make use, in some way, of Ambisonics tech­nology in the design and realisation of the sound space thus composed. This technology, as well as the pieces mentioned, will be featured in a workshop held on the same day at O’culto da Ajuda by António Ferreira, with the theme Ambisonics/Binau­ral. This workshop aims to present a personal view on the practice of spatially conceived composition, using various practical examples.

Composed for piano between 2014 and 2015, the work Paráfrase sobre LETTERA AMOROSA de Claudio Monteverdi, by Cândido Lima (composer published by MIC.PT), is part of the recital that pianist José Pedro Ribeiro will give on March 6 and 7, at the Misericórdia Church in Odemira and at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. ‘This work’, says Cândido Lima, ‘a remembrance of Renaissance and medieval memories, of poets and musi­cians of past and modern times, is at the same time a glo­rification, appropri­ation, transgression, projection and ex­pansion, through met­aphors and analogies, of the world of words through sound abstraction, distant from the objectivity of the seman­tics concept, from the specific meanings and connotations of words’. As part of this recital, integrating the Music Through Time cycle, José Pedro Ribeiro will also perform works by Fernando Lopes-Graça, Frédéric Chopin, Hugo Ribeiro, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Joseph Haydn.

A new musical miniature has been commissioned from Carlos Caires (com­poser published by MIC.PT) by the Beyra – Artistic Lab, as part of the project Tríptico – 3 miniaturas, which also features the participation of compo­sers Pedro Lima and Sara Ross. The three new miniatures will be presented on March 24 at Casa da Música in Porto, as part of the Celestial City concert, where the Remix Ensemble, the Beira Interior Orchestral Ensemble, cellist Filipe Quaresma, pianist Jonathan Ayerst and con­ductor Pedro Neves will also present works by Carlos Azevedo, Luís Tinoco and Olivier Messiaen. The Beira Interior Orchestral Ensemble, which on this occasion will be hosted by the Remix Ensemble Casa da Música, brings together young musicians selected through rigorous biennial auditions. One of this project’s objectives is to promote and perform the premieres and commissions of works by Portu­guese composers.

The new work for electric guitar quartet by Carlos Lopes, entitled racing on a cul-de-sac, will premiere on March 26 in Cologne, Ger­many. The performers of the premiere will be Tobias Juchem, Henrique Almeida, Ptolemaios Armaos and Tal Botvinik, four musicians who comprise the Cologne Guitar Quartet, the group that commis­sioned this work from Carlos Lopes. In the programme note, the composer (published by MIC.PT) emphasises that racing on a cul-de-sac ‘is a work driven by distorted hard rock sounds’. There, he also says that ‘the title evokes American suburbs and the absurdity of speeding towards a dead end — an allegory of current political and social conflicts. Be­tween clouds of fragile harmonics and intense noise remi­niscent of high-powered engines, the piece explores the entire sound spectrum of the amplified guitar, evoking the pulse of an increasingly restless world’.

On March 16, the Serralves Bookshop, in Porto, will host the first public pre­sentation of the album Música para Mysterious Heart, by Diogo Alvim (composer published by MIC.PT). This release by Crónica Electrónica, with the support of the GDA Foundation, will be officially launched next month, more precisely on April 7. The album brings together the music composed for Mysterious Heart, a choreographic creation by Tânia Carvalho for the German company Tanzmainz, presented at the Staatstheater Mainz in 2024. Based on a set of emotions, the choreog­rapher recorded vocal improvisations that served as the basis for Diogo Alvim’s electroacoustic compositions, now brought together on this album. During the pre-release ses­sion, Diogo Alvim and Tânia Carvalho will perform a set of the album pieces live, in versions adapted to the perfor­mance format.

In March, two operas by composer Fernando C. Lapa (published by MIC.PT) will have their premieres. On the 7th, the opera Papa est mort – António Feijó – O poeta que morreu de amor, with libretto and staging by António Durães, will be presented at the Diogo Bernardes Theatre in Ponte de Lima. The performance, under the musical direction of José Eduardo Gomes, will feature Marco Alves dos Santos (tenor), Sara Braga Simões (soprano), Tiago Matos (baritone) and the Toy Ensemble. This opera was commissioned by the Town Council for the closing ceremony of the celebrations marking the 900th anniversary of Ponte de Lima’s charter. The premiere of the second opera, Amor de Perdição, with music by Fernando C. Lapa, libretto by Eduarda Freitas and staging by Ángel Fragua, will be realised at the Municipal Theatre of Vila Real on March 13. In this case, the performance will be given by Raquel Mendes (soprano), Paulo Lapa (tenor), Inês Constantino (mezzo-soprano), the Moços do Coro group and the Oniros Ensemble, under the direction of Jan Wierzba.

Hugo Vasco Reis’ new creation, Ténue (2026), for viola, percus­sion and electronics, included in the Sonic Figures Project and performed by Trevor McTait (viola), Miquel Bernat (per­cussion), and the composer him­self (electronics), will be presented at Lisboa Incomum (March 5), at the National Music Museum in Mafra (8th), at the Univer­sity of Aveiro (10th) and at the Fábrica da Criati­vidade in Castelo Branco (18th). Additionally, as part of the 2nd Portu­guese Guitar Festival, Hugo Vasco Reis will present the cycle of works Tateabi­lidade (2023), for Portu­guese guitar, objects and elec­tronics, at the Teatro Varie­dades, in Lisbon, on the 7th. Finally, the piece Vulnera­bilidade (2025) by this composer (published by MIC.PT) will be presen­ted by Síntese – GMC on March 26, at the Helena Sá e Costa Theatre, in Porto. Hugo Vasco Reis’ new album, Cinco Lugares sobre a Fragilidade, is also available in phys­ical and digital formats. It fea­tures five movements from the sound installation of equal name, based on field re­cordings from five municipalities in central Portugal.

On March 21, composer Helder Filipe Gonçalves (published by MIC.PT) will be awarded a Diploma in Artistic Creation and Pro­duction by the Covilhã Teachers’ Club, granting him the sta­tus of Honorary Member. As part of this ceremony, which will take place during the Commemorative Dinner for the 22nd Anniversary of the Covilhã Teachers’ Club, in the Pêro da Covilhã Room of the Meliá Covilhã Dona Maria Hotel, an arrangement by Helder Filipe Gonçalves of the Covilhã Teachers’ Club Anthem (with music and lyrics by José Luiz Adriano) will also be performed.

The piece My Empty Hands (2018), for flexible percus­sion ensemble, electronics and video, by composer Igor C. Silva (published by MIC.PT), will be presented in Spain, in March, as part of two concerts. The first concert will take place on March 11 at MUSIKENE – Higher Music Centre of the Basque Country, in San Sebastián (Donostia). The second concert, entitled Percussion and Avant-garde and directed by Antonio Domingo, will take place on the 14th at the Aragon Higher Conservatory of Music in Zaragoza. In both cases, the performers will be the musicians of the MUSIKENE Percussion Ensemble.

On March 14 and 15, in Room 1 of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, a performance–installation will be pre­sented as part of the project Corpos Sonoros III (Sound Bodies III), led by com­poser Jaime Reis (published by MIC.PT) and percus­sionist Francisco Cipriano. Corpos Sonoros is a creative project that combines sound art, sculpture and community performance. Participants explore sounds and textures using unconven­tional instruments, built from reused materials and everyday objects, encouraging the discovery of new sound experi­ences. In the second phase, a database will be created with recordings made during the February and March sessions. This repository will serve as raw material and a source of inspiration for the creation of an acousmatic piece by Jaime Reis, developed from the sounds generated by the instru­ments designed as part of the Corpos Sonoros III project.

Three pieces for soprano, flute and piano, composing the Genealogias cycle, by composer Miguel Azguime (published by MIC.PT) — Genealogias da Matéria, Genea­logias do Horizonte (both from 2023), and Genea­logias do Crepúsculo (2025, world premiere) — are included in the programme for the concert by the trio Sond’Ar-te Três Mulheres, which will take place on March 21 at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. During this recital, soprano Camila Mandillo, flutist Sílvia Cancela, and pianist Elsa Silva will also perform two other works — one by Ângela da Ponte (a composer published by MIC.PT) and another by Marta Domingues, which will be presented for the first time. In addition, on March 15, percussionist Miquel Bernat will perform Miguel Azguime’s work for vibraphone — Mine­ralizando! (2026). This concert — part of the [CON]­TEMPO Festival — will occur at the Juan del Enzina Theatre in Salamanca (Spain).

In February, the New Music Review Lounge published a new text by Pedro Boléo entitled Energy, tension, density (and a beautiful climax!). In this review, the author focuses on the concert by the DME Ensemble, which took place as part of the international meeting Pensar a Música Hoje (Thinking Music Today), a joint initiative by the Arte no Tempo association and the DME Project. The concert programme, conducted by maestro Pedro Carneiro, included works by Mariana Vieira, Jaime Reis, Carlos Caires and Hèctor Parra.

The start date of the annual contemporary music fest, organised by Miso Music Portugal, with a special focus on music created in Portugal, is fast ap­proaching. The 32nd edition of the Música Viva Festival, entitled Insurgência (Insurgency), ‘establishes itself’, in the words of its artistic director, Miguel Azguime, ‘as a stage for aesthetic and ethical resistance in a world marked by deep crises’. As Miguel Azguime emphasises: ‘In this 32nd edition, Insurgency is both poetic and political. Musical creation emerges as an act of confrontation, deviation, and refusal, asserting art as a sensitive weapon against structural violence, dehumanisation, and the logic of fear. The works presented do not seek comfort but rather friction: they question, expose wounds, open fissures, and summon new forms of listening, thinking, and presence’. The festival programme includes a wide range of works created by Portuguese composers: Bruno Gabirro, Carlos Brito Dias, Carlos Lopes, Diogo Alvim, Fernando Lopes-Graça, João Quinteiro, Jorge Peixinho, José Carlos Sousa, Marta Domingues, Miguel Azguime, Pedro Berardinelli and Solange Azevedo. As for the perfoirmers, the festival programme features individuals and groups who have performed several times at Música Viva, as well as new partic­ipants: the Duo Nada Contra with Mrika Sefa (piano) and Francisco Cipriano (percussion), the MPMP Ensemble, the Percussion Group of the Portuguese Chamber Orchestra conducted by Pedro Carneiro, pianist José Pedro Ribeiro, the Miso String Quartet, the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra conducted by Pedro Neves, the Braga Sinfonietta, and the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble conducted by Guillaume Bourgogne. The Música Viva 2026 Festival will take place from April 28 to May 3 at the São Luiz Municipal Theatre in Lisbon.

Applications are open for the 3rd Young Chamber Music Season, with concerts scheduled for June 6, 7, 13 and 14 at the O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon. In this context, the jury com­posed of Nuno Pinto (clarinettist), Filipe Quaresma (cel­list) and Miguel Azguime (composer) will select four chamber music groups for this Season. The concert pro­grammes must include at least one Portuguese piece and one international piece, both from the 20th or 21st centuries. The Young Chamber Music Season, a project by Miso Music Portugal and the Portuguese Association of Friends of Music, aims to foster chamber music by encouraging the performance of works by Portuguese composers and supporting young musi­cians in Portugal. The deadline for submitting applications is March 31, 2026.

The International Music Festival of Póvoa de Varzim (FIMPV) announces the 19th edition of the International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim (CICPV). The CICPV’s objec­tive is to award works by composers born after December 1, 1985. The music group invited to the 2026 edition is the Póvoa de Varzim Contemporary Ensemble, conducted by maestro Stanley Dodds. Compe­tition entries must use at least ten different instruments from this ensemble. The jury, which will award two prizes and reserves the right to also award honourable mentions, is composed of Vasco Mendonça (president), Ângela da Ponte and Nik Bärtsch. The deadline for submitting works is June 3, 2026.

To promote and encourage the creation of contemporary music and to disseminate the work of young composers, the Portuguese Authors Society and RTP/Antena 2 are holding another SPA/Antena 2 Composition Prize. The competition is open to composers of Portuguese nationality, or to foreigners who have been resident in Portugal for more than four years, who were born on or after January 1, 1991. Submitted works must be unpublished, purely orchestral pieces, with no use of soloists or electronic media. The premiere of the winning piece, performed by the Gulbenkian Orchestra, will take place at the 16th Young Musicians Festival at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon on September 17, 2026. Appli­cations must be sent by registered post by July 3, 2026 (date of receipt).

Applications are open for the 2026 Accordion Composition Award (9th Edition · Folefest Association). This award is open to composers of Portuguese nationality or non-Portuguese residents in Portugal, of any age. The work to be submitted must be unpublished. The promoter of the Award reserves the right to the organisation of the world premieres of the winning works. The works submitted for the competition must be written for a chamber music ensemble (two to six instruments), with the mandatory inclusion of a single accordion. The jury will be composed of: Daniel Moreira (composer), Ana Seara (composer), Paulo Jorge Ferreira (accordionist/composer/jury president) and Nélson Ruivo (secretary — Folefest Association). Applications must be sent by registered post by July 17, 2026 (date of dispatch).

With the aim to encourage the creation and diffusion of new acousmatic/electroacoustic works, Miso Music Portugal promotes and organises the 27th edition of the International Electroacoustic Composition Competition – Música Viva 2026. The competition is open to composers of any nation­ality and age, each of whom may submit only one work, which has not been commercially published or awarded at any other national or international competition. The jury of the 27th International Electroacoustic Composition Competition – Música Viva 2026, whose members will be announced shortly, will award one work with a prize of 500 €. The winning work will be performed in concert by the Miso Music Loudspeakers Orchestra, in 2026, in Lisbon. The deadline for the works’ submission is July 31, 2025 (11h59 p.m., Lisbon time).

The Portuguese Symphonic Band promotes the International Composition Competition with the aim of stimulating the creation of original repertoire for bands. Open to composers of all nationalities aged up to 40 (as of December 31, 2026), the competition sees musical composition as a space for artistic dialogue often inspired by other areas. In the 2026 edition, the BSP proposes as its theme Portugal’s accession to the European Union. Participants are challenged to create an original work that establishes an artistic and conceptual relationship with the proposed theme. The jury’s final decision on the results of the competition will be made after the public premiere of the finalists’ works, which will take place at a concert by the Portuguese Symphonic Band in November, in Porto. Entries for the competition must be submitted by September 20, 2026.

Presently the MIC.PT YouTube Channel contains 36 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 Music of Research & Invention 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.