Drumming

Drumming - Percussion group was founded in Oporto in 1999. The group has been synthesizing the evolution of erudite percussion in Portugal and in western culture. It has rapidly earned the public and the critic's sympathy and today it is a reference in the Portuguese musical life, performing in the main concert halls of Portugal: Centro Cultural de Belém, Gulbenkian Foundation, Culturgest, Teatro Camões, Teatro Rivoli, Teatro Nacional de S. João, Fundação de Serralves, etc., as well as in Spain, Belgian, France, Germany, Brazil, etc. Resident group for musical programming in Porto 2001 - European Cultural Capital, it has contributed to promote great contemporary plays, also creating its own repertoire, encouraging dozens of national and international composers to write plays for the group, exploring the most diversified, various and imaginative forms and ways of expressing percussion, earning progressively several publics in that area, which has never been heard before. Under the direction of Miquel Bernat, percussionist and pedagogue of international prestige, funding member of Ictus Ensemble from Brussels and collaborator of the Contemporary Dancing Company Rosas from Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Drumming distinguishes itself for its singular programming, which sums up the experiences of the director's professional life, with the variety, diversity of styles and formation of its members. Drumming explores musical areas such as: contemporary music, rock-jazz-world Music, music for theatre scenes, opera and ballet dance. The group's activity goes also through collaboration with other groupings like the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Oporto National Orchestra, Remix Ensemble, Quarteto Montagnana and solo players like the singer Maria João or the violoncellist Ivan Moniguetti, among others. Drumming - percussion group tries to maintain a stylish and thematic coherency, going through sound innovation and the poetics of the musical show as a total and unique scenic moment. (text by Drumming)

Website
Discography

Sérgio Azevedo

Photo: Carlos Mateus de Lima

Composer Sérgio Azevedo was born in Coimbra in 1968. He studied composition at the Academia de Amadores de Música (Lisbon) with composer Fernando Lopes-Graça and finished his studies of composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, with Christopher Bochmann (a disciple of Nadia Boulanger) and Constança Capdeville. He followed several seminars at IRCAM and other institutions and worked in short periods with composers like Emmanuel Nunes (at the Gulbenkian Foundation), Tristan Murail, Phillipe Manoury, Jorge Peixinho, Louis Andriessen and Simon Bainbridge. He won several prizes of composition, in Portugal and abroad (like the United Nations Prize), and his works have been played and commissioned regularly in several countries (Spain, France, UK, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, USA, etc) by prestigious ensembles, soloists and conductors (Luca Pfaff, Pascal Roffé, Jürgen Bruns, Nikolai Lalov, Bruno Belthoise, Artur Pizarro, António Rosado, Miguel Borges Coelho, Anne Kaasa, Jose Ramon Encinar, Galliard Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Kammersymphonie Berlin, etc), some of them being available in commercial CDs. He works frequently with schools and students, composing a great deal of didactic pieces, ranging from piano solo to small ensembles and school orchestras. He’s also a prolific writer on music, with two books published, Inventing Sounds (Caminho 1999) and Olga Prats - Um Piano Singular (Bizâncio 2007) and several articles. He also contributes to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and works for other prestigious magazines and CD labels. In 1993 he was appointed teacher of composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. He was also author of broadcastings at RDP - Antena 2 since 1993 and member of the CESEM, Center for Aesthetic and Music Studies between 1993 and 2007. In 2007 he began his doctorate degree at Universidade do Minho with Elisa Lessa and Christopher Bochmann. His music is published by AVA - Editions (www.editions-ava.com). (adapted from text by Sérgio Azevedo)

Blog

Other pages:

http://www.classical-composers.org/comp/azevedo
http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/azevedos.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9rgio_Azevedo

Ludovice Ensemble

Ludovice Ensemble is a Portuguese Early Music group focused on the research and performance of Baroque Chamber Music. It aims at a passionate and intense, but still stylistically accurate approach of varied repertoires, from French 17th century Ballet and Sacred Music, to German Sonatas and Italian Secular Cantatas. Their performances are inflamed by a Mediterranean-flavored sense of Drama and Rhetorical deliver, most appropriated to the Baroque cultural inheritance they revive. Created in 2004 by the harpsichord and organ player Miguel Jalôto and the traverso player Joana Amorim, the Ludovice Ensemble, besides its regular instrumental core (traverso, 1 or 2 violins, gamba or cello, harpsichord/organ) works regularly with guest extraordinary artists, like singers Orlanda Velez Isidro and Hugo Oliveira, and the French Baroque Dancer/Mime/Puppeteer Akiko Veaux. Ludovice Ensemble performed already in most of the major music festivals in Portugal, like "Festa da Música" - Lisbon (CCB), Mafra, Leiria, Alcobaça (Cistermusica), Loulé (Encontros de Música Antiga), Évora (Encontros do Espírito Santo), Baixo Alentejo (Terras sem Sombra), Viana do Castelo (Ciclo de Música Sacra) and many other concerts in cities like Lisbon (Calouste Gulbenkian Museum), Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia and Évora. The high scholar- and musicianship of Ludovice Ensemble performances is already recognized in Portuguese Musical Circle, and the group intends soon to present their work to a larger public, through CD recordings and concerts abroad. (adapted from text by Ludovice Ensemble)

blog (with audio recordings)

Rui Penha

Composer and conductor Rui Penha was born in Oporto. At the age of six he started studying piano and harpsichord. In 2006, he graduated in Music Education and Composition from the University of Aveiro, where he studied under Sara Carvalho and João Pedro Oliveira. He has also studied with Emmanuel Nunes, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann and Louis Andriessen, among others, participating actively in Workshops and Master Classes. In 2007, he began his doctoral research under João Pedro Oliveira. He studied conducting with Ralph Allwood, Mike Brewer, Péter Erdei and Jean-Sébastien Béreau, among others. He is the conductor of the contemporary ensemble Momentum Ensemble, with whom he has premiered and recorded works of some of Portugal's foremost composers. He is also an interpreter of live electroacoustic music, both as a soloist and in chamber music. He was awarded some prizes, including the 1st prize in the Prémio Nacional de Composição Jorge Peixinho and an honorable mention in the Música Viva competition. He was selected twice for the Gulbenkian Orchestra Workshop for Young Composers and for the Young Composers' Meeting 2007(Netherlands). He has composed music for cinema, tv, radio and interactive installations. He’s been invited as a speaker in conferences and as active participant in international symposiums, being also a programmer of musical software. He was awarded a mention for the whole of the pedagogical work in the Lomus 2008 - International Music Software Contest. His works have been played in several countries, by some foremost groups as the Arditti Quartet, Gulbenkian Orchestra and Orkest ‘de ereprijs’ and soloists as Pedro Carneiro and Adam Wodnicki. Some of his works have been published, both in scores and CDs. He teaches at the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro and he is also a consultant of the Education Service at Casa da Música (Oporto).(adapted from text by Rui Penha)

Website

Jaime Reis

Photo: Ana Lima

Composer Jaime Reis started studying music at five, in Seia, with ethnomusicologist António Tilly. He started composing at 12, studying at Conservatório de Música in Seia and Viseu. Between 17 and 22, he concluded a music teaching degree in the University of Aveiro, where he studied composition and electronic music with Isabel Soveral and João Pedro Oliveira. He finished a doctoral course in Social Sciences in Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he's pursuing doctoral studies in Musicology with Professors Salwa Castelo-Branco and Emmanuel Nunes, whose composition seminars he attends regularly, namely those of Gulbenkian Foundation. He also attended Stockhausen’s summer courses (Kürten). He was given a mention on the 1st and 2nd Jorge Peixinho Contest, he was selected thrice for the Gulbenkian Workshop for Young Composers, his music was selected to be presented at the ICMC 2005 (Barcelona). Besides his activity as a composer, he is artistic directot of festivals Days of Portuguese Music in Krakow and Days of Electroacoustic Music, in Portugal. Conferences: University of Aveiro, Music Academy in Krakow and Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, among others; sonorization of documentaries and multimedia presentations; research fellow for the Portuguese Music Information Centre and for INET (Ethnomusicology Institute – Universidade Nova de Lisboa), where he develops studies about Portuguese music; he teaches and is co-director of Conservatório de Música in Seia. His music has been presented, among others, in Portugal (Festival Música Viva and Festival de Música de Aveiro), in Poland, Turkey, France, Austria (Hörfest 05, Graz), where he was invited composer to premiere is piece Lysozyme Synthesis, and Belgium (Ghent), where he premiere his piece Density Study, commissioned by Logos Foundation. In 2006/2007 he was composer in residence at Laboratory of Electroacoustic Creation (Miso Music, Portugal) and at Visby International Centre for Composers (2007). (adapted from text by Jaime Reis)

You Tube

Webpage
Contact

Quarteto Lopes-Graça

Quarteto Lopes-Graça was formed within the Lisbon National Conservatory School of Music and is created by musicians with outstanding solo and chamber careers, teachers of that institution: Luís Pacheco Cunha and Anne Victorino d'Almeida, violins; Isabel Pimentel, viola; Catherine Stryncks, cello. This project intends to bestow the Conservatory, likewise many of its fellow-schools in the world, with a reference group in the strings’ area, capable of developing a permanent teaching activity (quartet master-classes) as well as promoting the school, both in Portugal and abroad. The ensemble performed in Lisbon’s Centro Cultural de Belém as well as in the Festival “In search of a lost Concert House”, in Lisbon. It performed twice in “La Folle Journée” (Nantes, 2005 and 2006) and in many other venues around the anniversaries of Lopes-Graça and Mozart. It pays a very special attention to the repertoire by contemporary Portuguese composers, having given a few world premieres of such works. Its first CD includes major creations by Lopes-Graça and António Victorino d’Almeida. It privileges the staging of Portuguese composers' works, considering the relative wealth of international level creations for string quartet by composers such as Santos Pinto, Viana of Mota, Cláudio Carneiro, Luís de Freitas Branco, Frederico de Freitas, Joly Braga Santos, Fernando Lopes-Graça or the more recent António Victorino d’Almeida, Luís Tinoco, Amílcar Vasques Dias (work dedicated to this quartet). Nevertheless, it remains deeply involved in the rendering of the great classical works such as the ones created by Haydn, Mozart, Cherubini, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich. (adapted from text by Quarteto Lopes-Graça)

Contact

António de Sousa Dias

Composer António de Sousa Dias, born in Lisbon in 1959, completed his Superior Course in Composition at the Lisbon National Conservatoire and a PhD in musicology in Paris VIII. He is a member of CITAR and post doctoral researcher at CICM (MSH Paris Nord / Université Paris VIII) with a fellowship from FCT / MCTES (Portugal). His research project in progress : InstallaSon - KITTy : Vers le développement d’outils d’assistance à la conception et construction d’espaces musicaux navigables. Most of his compositional work is for cinema and television. Outside Portugal, his compositions have been played in several countries, mainly in Europe (France, Spain, Italy, Russia, etc.). Deputy director of Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (from 1995 to 2001) he taught there Composition and Electroacoustics (since 1987). Member of ColecViva, directed by Constança Capdeville, as direction assistant, sound synthesis and percussion since 1985. Since 1992 he collaborates with the Grupo Música Nova, directed by Cândido Lima. (adapted from text by António de Sousa Dias)

website

Daniel Schvetz

Luso-Argentinian composer, born in Buenos Aires , Daniel Schvetz studied piano and composition in National Conservatory and particularly; piano with Roberto Brando and Moisés Makaroff and couterpoint, analisis and composition with Guillermo Gratzer, pupil of Paul Hindemith. He began improvising on the piano since 3 years old and this took him to develop his ideas both arranging and composing early, for jazz, folklore and contemporary ensembles and choirs. He attended the Cursos Latinoamericanos de Música Contemporânea, in Brazil and Argentina. He made investigation and performing tours all over his own country, Bolivia and Peru. He founded the projects “Luna” and “ Canto entero”, of Folkloric projection, and “ El Borde”, who performed his own compositions in modern tango style. Yet there he wrote many works for piano and different chamber ensembles, and for theatre. In Portugal since 1990, he is professor of Analysis and composition technics and Chamber music at National Conservatory, and lecturer of Musical Analysis at Metropolitan Conservatory and Metropolitan Professional School. He founded with César Viana “Ophris”, to perform Portuguese Contemporary music. Works include “Formantes” for sax quartet, “Primeira sinfonia concertante”, for chamber orchestra and solo clarinet, “Segunda Sinfonia Concertante” for symphonic band and solo tenor sax, “Suite semi-porteña”, for harpsichord, symphonic theatral poems based on Borges’ and on V. Nemésio’ poems, “Sinfonia Apocalíptica”, for sax quartet, percussion and orchestra, “Missa de Santa Cecília”, “Cantata Brevis”, the operas “ The little prince” and “O Defunto”, musicals such as “Contos de Shakespeare”, “Homlet”, “Sonhos de uma noite de verão” and the farses “Gariações Volberg” and “A Mauta Flágica”. He conducts and performs tango and in improvisation concerts. (adapted from text by Daniel Schvetz)

Blog (with audio recordings)

My Space

Artur Pizarro

Photo by Sven Arnstein

Renowned for his lyrical poeticism and outstanding virtuosity, Artur Pizarro won the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1990. He performs regularly throughout the world with the leading orchestras and the world’s most distinguished conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Sir Simon Rattle & Sir Charles Mackerras. As a recitalist he has performed at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals including Washington’s Kennedy Centre, The Wigmore Hall, The Aldeburgh Festival, Neues Gewandhaus, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Theatre du Chatelet, Musee D’Orsay, Zurich Tonhalle, the BBC Proms and the NHK and Orchard Halls in Japan. His regular chamber music appearances have partnered him with Raphael Oleg, Christian Altenburger, Truls Mork, Toby Hoffmann, the St Lawrence, Muir & Petersen Quartets. In 2005, he founded the ‘Pizarro Trio’ with violinist Raphael Oleg and cellist Josephine Knight. He has recorded extensively for Collins Classics, Hyperion Records, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos and Linn Records, for which he released 2 CDs of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, 2 CDs with works by Chopin and also Ravel’s complete piano works, plus a CD of Rimsky-Korsakov’s piano duo music with Vita Panomariovaite. Recent recording also include Rodrigo’s complete piano works, for Naxos (chosen as Editors Choice in Gramophone Magazine) and the complete Lizst Hungarian Rhapsodies for Brilliant Classics. Throughout 2003-04 he performed the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Sonatas in London. All 8 concerts were broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Performance on 3’ and the cycle earned him a Royal Philharmonic Society Award Nomination for ‘Best Series’. The 06-07 season included the complete solo works of Ravel & Debussy in London broadcast live by BBC Radio 3 and also performed Lisbon & Denmark. (adapted from text in Artur Pizarro’s webpage)

Discography

Bruno Borralhinho

Cellist Bruno Borralhinho was born in 1982 and began his music studies at twelve years old with prof. Luis Sá Pessoa. He later studied with prof. Markus Nyikos at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, graduating and postgraduating with the highest distinctions. After that, he studied with Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk and attended several Master Classes with Natalia Gutman, Antonio Meneses, Anner Bylsma, Jian Wang and Martin Löhr, among others. He won 1st Prize in the "Julio Cardona" and "Prémio Jovens Músicos" contests, the last organized by the Portuguese National Radio. In the year of 2000 he organised the first National Cello Meeting in Portugal. As a soloist, he performed with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Coimbra Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra Clássica do Centro (soloist and conductor) and Orquestra do Norte. He has been a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and Solo-Cellist of the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra. He was also a member of the Academy of the Staatskapelle Berlin, resident orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, and “Praktikant“ in DSO - Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin. He performed in leading concert halls throughout all Europe, Russia, USA, Canada and South America and worked with important conductors, such as Daniel Barenboim, Claudio Abbado, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano and Christoph Eschenbach, and famous soloists: Anne Sophie Mutter, Martha Argerich, Maxim Vengerov, Mischa Maisky, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Rolando Villanzón, Thomas Quasthoff, among others. He’s a member of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Ensemble Mediterrain. His active professional activity includes regular soloist performances in solo recitals, with orchestra or with piano accompaniment in Portugal, Spain, Germany or Brazil, and he also gave Masterclasses in Spain and Brazil. (adapted from text by Bruno Borralhinho)

Website

Pedro M. Rocha

Composer Pedro M. Rocha was born in Torres Novas in 1961. From 1981 to 1986 he studied music at the Lisbon National Conservatoire, with Gilberta Paiva and Olga Prats (piano), as well as composition with Jorge Peixinho, Álvaro Salazar and mainly Christopher Bochmann, under whom he graduated in 1990 at Lisbon Superior School of Music. From 1982 to 1990, he attended the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s Composition Seminaries with Emmanuel Nunes and then went to study microtonalism with Alain Bancquart, in Paris (Gulbenkian F. scholarship), where from 1992 to 1993 he attended a Composition and Computer course at the IRCAM. He also attended several workshops and seminaries about various subjects: Piano; Electroacoustic Music, Choir and Orchestra Conducting, Singing and Vocal Technique. His music includes orchestral pieces – with and without choir; a capella choir; chamber music often using pre-recorded sounds; pure acousmatic works, some with video. He is interested in the expansion of form and of musical parameters. Different works have different kinds of openness/ improvisation - “Dual”, “To a free world”, “To a world free from beliefs” – that contrast with totally closed ones like the acousmatic: “To a world free from religions”, “To a word free from countries”, “Composição I” and “Simbioses”. (text by Pedro M. Rocha)

Website

Remix Ensemble

Remix Ensemble is Casa da Música's contemporary music group. Since its debut in 2000, it has already performed the world premières of sixty new works and a considerable range of contemporary music, covering all currents of style and idiom. In addition to its work on the concert platform, the group has made incursions into opera and music theatre, music accompanying films, dance and jazz. It has regularly invited featured composers to undertake workshops alongside performances of their works, including Emmanuel Nunes, Heiner Goebbels, James Dillon, Magnus Lindberg, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Mitterer and Karin Rehnqvist. To date, the Remix Ensemble has been conducted by Stefan Asbury, Ilan Volkov, Kasper de Roo, Pierre-André Valade, Rolf Gupta, Jonathan Stockhammer, Jurjen Hempel, Matthias Pintscher, Franck Ollu, Reinbert de Leeuw, Diego Masson, Paul Hillier and Emilio Pomàrico, amongst others conductors. At international level, the Remix Ensemble performed in Paris (IRCAM, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and L'Odeon), Strasbourg (Musica), Brussels (Ars Musica), Huddersfield, Rotterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Valence, Budapest, Orleans, Bourges, Reims, Norrköping and Vienna. The first double CD of music by the Remix Ensemble was released in 2004, containing live and studio recordings of works by Pauset, Azguime, Côrte-Real, Peixinho, Dillon, Staud and Nunes. New CDs with music by Emmanuel Nunes (Numérica), Bernhard Lang (Villa Concordia), Pinho Vargas (Numérica) and Wolfgang Mitterer (Casa da Música) are also available. In 2007/2008, Remix Ensemble performed several world premieres, including the first opera by Emmanuel Nunes and works by Miguel Azguime (with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation), António Chagas-Rosa (with the Klangforum Wien), Johannes Maria Staud, Rebecca Saunders, David Horn, Georg Friedrich Haas, Vykintas Baltakas, Georges Aperghis, Jon Balke, Wolfgang Mitterer and Mauricio Sotelo. The Remix Ensemble is scheduled to play concerts at various international festivals during 2009: Madrid, Witten, Brussels, Huddersfield and Amsterdam. Peter Rundel is the Remix Ensemble's Chief Conductor. (text from Remix Ensemble's page at Casa da Música's website)