| VENUE: | O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon |
| RADIO STATION: | Antena 2 – RTP |
| LINKS: |
https://ruipenha.pt/biography/ |
| STREAM: |
Soprano & trumpet performance with electronics
Camila Mandillo – soprano
João Silva – trumpet
“Aliterações de Água” by Miguel Azguime for soprano & electronics
“No man is an island” by Rui Penha for trumpet & electronics
Miguel Azguime was born in 1960 in Lisbon. Distinguished for originality and diversity, his musical world reflects an approach that relies on his multifaceted capabilities as composer, performer and poet. This threefold activity closely reflects an almost mystical vision of music and art.
Miguel Azguime studied at the Academia de Amadores de Música (1966-76), while also attending the Lisbon Conservatory. From 1975 to 1982 he studied percussion with Catarina Latino and Júlio Campos and founded various groups performing jazz and improvised music. In 1984 he went to Darmstadt, where he studied percussion with James Wood and composition with Horatiu Radulescu, Brian Ferneyhough and Clarence Barlow. He also attended seminars with Emmanuel Nunes, Cristóbal Halffter and Tristan Murail. Between 1985 and 1986 he studied percussion with Gaston Sylvestre in Paris and Nice.
In 1985, together with Paula Azguime, he founded the Miso Ensemble, a duo recognized by the public and by critics alike, as one of the most important Portuguese contemporary music ensembles. Besides giving numerous concerts in Portugal, the Miso Ensemble has been regularly performing abroad, with several hundred of concerts given up until now.
Miguel Azguime has composed music for diverse formations – instrumental and/or vocal with or without electronics, tape music, sound poetry, and also music for exhibitions, sound installations, electroacoustic theatre, dance and cinema. His compositional style enrols in a language of structural rigor, on the one hand, and formal liberty, on the other. “Mosaic” and “radiant” expressivity obtained by timbric richness as well as clarity in the development of ideas are assumed, in his music, as constant and unifying factors.
Miguel Azguime’s works have been performed by renowned soloists, ensembles ( Ensemble Recherche, Norrbotten NEO, Ensemble Ensemble Musikfabrik, Remix Ensemble, BBC Singers, Quarteto de Matosinhos, Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble, Smith Quartet, California EAR Unit, etc.), and conductors ( Laurent Cuniot, Petter Sundkvist, Franck Ollu, Guillaume Bourgogne, Renato Rivolta, Johannes Kalitzke, Pedro Neves, Pedro Carneiro, Pedro Amaral) and presented at major festivals of contemporary music around the world (Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, MaerzMusik, Warsaw Autumn Festival, Nordic Music Days and Festival Synthèse, among others). The composer also regularly receives commissions from Portuguese and international music institutions.The connections between “Azguime” the composer and “Azguime” the poet and performer, gave birth to a unique text and music relationship, developed in the Electroacoustic Theatre and New Op-Era concept. The multimedia opera “Salt Itinerary” (2003/06) is the materialization of this idea. It is a work, which transcends theatrical and music conventions. Reflecting on art and madness it revolves around languages, words as sources of meaning and words as sources of sound. Both are used as an extension of the body and melted in the construction of the staging – a tangible projection of the words’ resonance through sound and image.
Miguel Azguime remains actively dedicated to the promotion and diffusion of contemporary music. He is founder and director of the Miso Music Portugal, artistic director of the independent record label Miso Records and the Música Viva Festival as well as founder of the Miso Studio and the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble. Since 1995 he has been developing the first Portuguese Loudspeaker Orchestra dedicated exclusively to the performance of electroacoustic music. As researcher he has been working on the development of real time computer music, giving lectures and courses in this field. In 2003, together with Paula Azguime, he founded the Portuguese Music Research & Information Centre, a unit with an extensive database, belonging to the international network of Music Information Centres and dedicated exclusively to dissemination of the Portuguese music patrimony.
Miguel Azguime obtained various awards for composition and performance, e.g. the EMS composition prize in 2003 for “Le dicible enfin fini”, the UNESCO Music Theatre NOW prize for the “Salt Itinerary” (2008). He was composer in residence at different electroacoustic music studios around the world, namely the Heinrich Stroebel Experimental Studio of the Südwestfunk (Freiburg), the Electronic Music Studio EMS (Stockholm), Centre Henri Pousseur (Liège) and the Sonology Department of the Kunitachi University (Tokyo), among others. He also participates, as jury member, in contemporary composition competitions around the world. In 2006 Miguel Azguime was DAAD composer in residence in Germany. This context allowed him to create and produce his multimedia opera, “Salt Itinerary”, which constitutes, in a certain way, the culmination of a process of integration between writing poetry and composing music. This project also led to a renewed form of creative collaboration within the Miso Ensemble – as a result of development, implementation and consolidation of joint creative processes, which involve staging and image. These processes were initiated with Paula Azguime in the works “Yuan Zhi Yuan” and “O Centro do Excêntrico do Centro do Mundo” from 2002, and more recently in the children opera “The Little Girl Water Droplet”, based on the original poetic story by Papiniano Carlos composed for the Children and Youth Choir of the Lisbon University in 2010; as well as in the new opera “A Laugh to Cry” (2013).
Composer, media artist, and performer of electroacoustic music, Rui Penha was born in Porto in 1981. He completed his PhD in Music (Composition) at the University of Aveiro. His music is regularly recorded and played in festivals and concert halls around Europe and North America, by musicians such as Arditti Quartet, Peter Evans, Remix Ensemble, or the Gulbenkian Orchestra. He was a founder and curator of Digitópia (Casa da Música) and has a deep interest on the relationship between music and its technology. His recent production includes interfaces for musical expression, sound spatialisation software, interactive installations, musical robots, autonomous improvisers, and educational software. More recently, Rui has focused his attention on the problems of defining and guiding artistic research. He taught at several Portuguese institutions, in both music, art and engineering faculties, and is currently an assistant professor at ESMAE and researcher at CESEM.
The Portuguese soprano Camila Mandillo is currently studying towards her master’s degree at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin under the guidance of Professors Martin Bruns and Uta Priew.
She was a scholarship holder of the Deutschland Stipendium, and is currently a holder of the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin e.V. and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation scholarships.
Camila began her musical studies at the National Conservatory of Lisbon School of Music, where in 2014 she graduated both singing and classical guitar. She was a founding member, soloist and artistic assistant of the University of Lisbon Youth Choir.
She has performed in numerous masterclasses from artists including Deborah York, Jill Feldman, Sarah Maria Sun, Janet Williams, Scot Weir and Robert Dean Smith among others.
Her operatic roles have included, amongst others: Susanna in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro”, as part of the “Saluzzo Opera Academy” (SOA) in Italy; Zerlina in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” (Teatro Thalia and CCB); Morgana in Handel’s “Alcina” (Eisler Studiosaal, Berlin); Belinda in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” and Premier Cousin in Offenbach’s “La Périchole” (Ehemaliges Stummfilmkino Delphi, Berlin); Menina Gotinha in “A Menina Gotinha de Água” by Miguel Azguime (Cinema S. Jorge and CCB); and solo soprano in “Canti D’Amor II Musiek Jongenopera Transparants” inspired by Monteverdi madrigals (De Singel, Antwerp and Theater Louis Jouvet, Paris).
She is active in the contemporary music scene, with notable performances including her debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in a principal role in “Neuen Szenen IV” a production included in the 18/19 theatre programme; a solo performance of Gérard Grisey’s “Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil” with the Echo Ensemble under the direction of conductor Manuel Nawri (Eisler Studiosall, Berlin); a solo performance in the “Poesie und Musikverbinden Zeiten und Welten” event, organised by Mendelssohn Gesellschaft Berlin; a recital part of the “Emerging Talents Cycle” of the Música Viva 2018 Festival (O’culto da Ajuda); a solo performance in “Miguel Azguime Monographic Concert” with the Sond’Ar-te Electric Ensemble under direction of conductor Pedro Neves (São Luiz Teatro Municipal, Lisboa and Casa da Música, Porto); and a radio recital for the Antena 2 – Classical National Radio Channel of Portugal, in collaboration with the pianist Elsa Silva (O’culto da Ajuda).
João Silva is a trumpeter, teacher and researcher.
He studied at the Professional School of Music and Arts in Almada and at the National Conservatory of Music in Lisbon. He holds a degree in Music from the School of Applied Arts in Castelo Branco, where he was awarded the Academic Merit Award, and a Master of Music from the Cologne University of Music, having carried out his studies in the class of the renowned Swedish trumpet player Urban Agnas.
His eclectic and multifaceted career has been particularly focused on the instrument’s contemporary repertoire. In recent years, he has developed a particular interest in music for trumpet and electronics, a genre he has been deepening and exploring, working together with composers and frequently performing in Portugal and abroad. João is also avidly dedicated to improvisation, participating in various experimental music performances, often combining multimedia elements and multidisciplinary crossovers.
His most recent solo project, PLUGGED IN, a recital centered on the repertoire for solo trumpet and electronics, traveling through various aesthetic and interpretive universes, has been presented in several venues and festivals in Portugal and abroad.
Whether playing solo or in chamber music, João has participated in important music festivals, particularly in Portugal and Germany, such as the AchtBrücken Festival, Aachener Bachtage, CCB Music Days, Creative Sources Fest, Kölner Philharmonie Tripclubbing, Forum neuer Musik Deutschlandfunk or the Internationales Klavierfestival junge Meister Bodensee, having toured solo with Shostakovich’s Concert n. 1 for piano, trumpet and orchestra.
As an orchestral musician, his most recent performances with the Turkish Chamber Orchestra, German Radio Chamber Orchestra, Graubünden Kammerphilharmonie, Junge Sinfonie Köln or Southern Classical Orchestra stand out, in emblematic venues such as the Kölner Philharmonie, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Essener Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Ravensburg, Stadttheater Lindau, Centro Cultural de Belém, Casa da Música, Coliseu do Porto, Teatro Camões or Teatro São Luiz. He regularly plays and records for labels such as NEOS Music or Creative Sources Recordings, as well as various radio stations such as Deutschlandfunk, WDR–Westdeutscher Rundfunk or Antena 2.
João dedicates an important part of his activity to the instrument’s pedagogy, not only as a trumpet teacher, but also developing regular musical educational activities, such as workshops and masterclasses. Furthermore, as a researcher, he collaborates with the Contemporary Music Research Group at CESEM – Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical, having worked directly with the research units of the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon and the University of Évora, as a Research Fellow. He is a PhD candidate in Music and Musicology at the University of Évora, specializing in Interpretation; João’s research targets the repertoire for solo trumpet and electronics, mostly focused on the performer’s role and his relationship with the composer and audience.
João Silva is the founder and artistic director of DISRUPÇÃO, a center focused on the creation and promotion of Contemporary Music and Sound Art, whose main mission is the creation, promotion and dissemination of Contemporary Music, in its most varied dimensions.
– ART'S BIRTHDAY – 