Vítor Rua

Composer and guitarist Vítor Rua (b. 1961) began his career in the late seventies with a series of interventions that changed the face of Portuguese pop/rock. In 1982, he formed with Jorge Lima Barreto the duo Telectu. In 1987, in an act of autodidactic determination, he devoted himself to the study of contemporary musical notation. His work is characterised by a variegated, embryonic post-modernism and an empiricist rejection of cultural confines, and reflects a transition from structured improvisation to strict composition. The multiple intention of his work is therefore an aesthetic and kaleidoscopic propaedeutic about the situationism of post-modern music - a proposition for a new musical subjectivism. In the course of his work as an improviser, he has played with leading figures in the world of improvisation (Jorge Lima Barreto, Chris Cutler, Elliott Sharp, Jac Berrocal, Nuno Rebelo, Carlos Zíngaro, Jean Sarbib, Evan Parker, Paul Lytton, Eddie Prévost, Louis Sclavis, Sunny Murray, Ikue Mori, Paul Rutherford, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Barry Altschul and Daniel Kientzy). His music has been played around the world by virtuosos interpreters like Daniel Kientzy, John Tilbury, Giancarlo Schiaffini, Ensemble QTR (Peter Bowman and Kathryn Bennetts), Ana Ester Neves, Frank Abbinanti. (text by Vítor Rua)