Works

[forza insolita] [come una bella melodia] [solo ornamento] [ironico forse] - In early 2026, I wrote ‘four games for GK’ for piano four hands as a tribute to the 100th anniversary of Hungarian composer György Kurtág. He has always been a major reference for me in many ways. I would highlight the small aphoristic forms of his music, the way they express a climate of subtle magic and restraint that emerges naturally from its great harmonic, timbral and temporal richness. The work ‘four games for GK’ proposes, in each of its four movements, the use of some characteristic features of Kurtág’s music, a kind of musical games (Játékok) left as a tribute to this great composer who will turn 100 on 19 February 2026.

1. about(va); 2. congérie (enérgico) [Reunião ou massa informe de pequenas coisas diferentes]; 3. mais perto...; 4. voilá(va) [Citação harmónica de "Verdes anos" de Carlos Paredes] - “about(va)” is a cycle of 4 pieces that propose a gradual approach to ‘Verdes anos’ by Carlos Paredes. In each of the pieces, in a more or less obvious way , the work Verdes anos (va) appears until it is materialized in the harmonic quotation of “Voilá(va)” . This piece was composed as part of the “Cultural exchange” program that will take place at Iwate University and Salon de Musica in September 2025 in Morioka and Tokyo, Japan.

"Ascent” describes the spiral, almost vertiginous ascent to a better place, somewhere above us. This piece can be performed in 3 versions, flute and piano, trumpet and piano and finally flute, trumpet and piano. "Ascent" was composed as part of the “Cultural exchange” program that will take place at Iwate University and Salon de Musica in September 2025 in Morioka and Tokyo, Japan.

“(...) suave como pássaro, voando” is a cycle of 4 pieces for piano 4 hands, based on ‘about(va)’ . A gradual approach to Carlos Paredes' “Verdes anos” is proposed in each of the pieces, in a more or less evident way . The work “Verdes anos” gradually appears until it is materialized in the harmonic quotation of “Voilá(va)” .

(a) (b♭) (c) - 'Kind of (...)' for solo trumpet are three pieces whose title alludes to Miles Davis ' “Kind of blues ” . After all, whatever it is, music is always a kind of proposal, the composer usually presents his way of creating and resolving a musical idea. What some consider to be originality, I would only call singularity, the craftsman ' s personal way of working with clay, a kind of (...). "Kind of (...)" was composed as part of the “Cultural exchange ” program that will take place at Iwate University and Salon de Musica in September 2025 in Morioka and T okyo, Japan.

1. Mastros quebrados 2. Mármores ao Poente 3. Claustros falsos 4. Taça de cristal e espanto 5. Luz-perdão - ‘Luar-ânsia...' is a string quartet written in a short space of time in April 2025. In an apparently apotheotic state, but also in an atmosphere of yearning, just like the poem, the music flows in the contradiction of the two opposing forces.

about CP “Frustation” is a short piece for electronics and trumpet. The starting point was a recording of Carlos Paredes' “Frustação” performed by Mafalda Lemos. On the recording, which has been extensively distorted and altered, the trumpet integrates her ideas, both written and improvised. The space of this work can be, as Carlos Paredes himself says at one point, a starting point. about CP "Frustation" was composed as part of the “Cultural exchange” program that will take place at Iwate University and Salon de Musica in September 2025 in Morioka and Tokyo, Japan.

It's been 32 years since I composed my last piece for two pianos... At the time it was a big step for me, I really believed that my activity as a composer had begun there, in that composition for 2 pianos. Now I compose "for nothing" , once again to be practically nothing, just that atmosphere of non-development.

Like a progressive march, I transfigured the theme ‘Canoas do T ejo ’ , eternalised by the fado singer Carlos do Carmo. "Por onde vais?" was composed as part of the “Cultural exchange ” program that will take place at Iwate University and Salon de Musica in September 2025 in Morioka and Tokyo, Japan.

This is my second saxophone quartet, "second " . The first was written for this formation in _ 2012. Realising the enormous quantity and quality of works written for this formation, I nevertheless began a new proposal, the second and possibly not the last. This is the saxophone quartet, my favourite four-piece formation.

Saída; Esperanza; Hipokrités; Xénos; Integración - ‘Xénia’ for Euphonium and Vibraphone was composed as part of Êxodo, a NoMad Duo project by Ricardo Antão and Jonathan Silva. This project, which combats xenophobia and intolerance by promoting closer ties of brotherhood with those arriving from foreign countries, was the conceptual starting point for the form and materials of this work. In its five movements, Saída, Esperanza, Hipokrités, Xénos and Integración, I sought to freely translate some moments in the life of a migrant. From leaving their countries of origin, fear, hope, the hypocrisy of xenophobia to integration, ‘Xénia’ alludes to all of this, just listen. - Commissioned by Nomad Duo

‘Vertigo’ for Euphonium and Vibraphone was composed as part of Êxodo, a NoMad Duo project by Ricardo Antão and Jonathan Silva. This project, which combats xenophobia and intolerance by promoting closer ties of fraternity with those arriving from foreign countries, was the conceptual starting point for the form and materials of this work. It proposes a kind of vertiginous spiral, which I associated with the gesture and courage of those who leave one place for another without knowing what they will find. - Commissioned by Nomad Duo

2024, the year of celebrations marking 25 years of independence and self-determination for Timor-Leste, was also the moment when “Lafaek” was written – in the Tetum language, this means crocodile, an animal that is almost sacred to the Timorese people and also roughly resembles the geographical shape of the country. The first 15 bars of the first movement feature a quote from ‘Kole Lele Mai’, a traditional song from Baucau. In the second piece, an indelible allusion to the national anthem of Timor-Leste can be heard. The third movement draws a noticeable technical parallel with the magnificent third piece, Movimento preciso e meccanico, from György Ligeti's Chamber Concerto for 13 Instrumentalists. The last piece in this cycle intangibly addresses the legend of the crocodile grandfather, a legend that sustains the myth that this reptile is a kind of relative, that it never attacks good people and that Timor-Leste was actually born from a crocodile. - Commissioned by Música de Câmara Braga 2025

'Adiós' for euphonium and vibraphone was composed as part of Êxodo, a NoMad Duo project by Ricardo Antão and Jonathan Silva. This project, which combats xenophobia and intolerance by promoting closer ties of brotherhood with those arriving from foreign countries, was the conceptual starting point for the form and materials of this work. - Commissioned by Nomad Duo

"Rosa Branca" (in memoriam João Vilanova); "Nos campos da Vila Rica"; "Oh Bento Airoso"; IV (como será em 1999?); "Tu que tens, ó D. Fernando"; "Meus irmãos, cuidai na morte" ‘Vilanova’ is a cycle of 6 nostalgic pieces in which the narrative is made up of musical memories that I've been listening to since I was a child, sounds from my imagination mixed between a bucolic village in the Serra do Alvão (Souto) and musical themes from the province of Trás-os-Montes. This work, an adaptation for classical trio of my piece ‘Bucolicae’ , is dedicated to João Vilanova, a friend who left us too soon, a musician with a remarkable work in recreating popular music from Trás-os-Montes in the town of Vila Pouca de Aguiar.

(counting) (misty) (kaleidoscope) (no one knows) (tangled) (fz) (fanfare) - The wind quintet “Seven sketches” is the second in this line-up, both composed in December 2024. Written in a flash, each of its 7 movements proposes quick sketches on musical ideas that have been with me for a long time. It's a moment of great surrender and rapture on my part, in the most natural way, just like music.

'Branca rosa brava', a work commissioned by Síntese – Grupo de Música Contemporânea, covers the seven short verses of Eugénio de Andrade's poem Escrita da terra. Structurally, the seven short verses are interspersed with four exclusively instrumental parts. The end result is a continuous instrumental work, divided into eleven short sections in which the voice reinforces the ephemeral nature of the words in its brief interventions. - Commissioned by Síntese - Contemporary Music Group (Síntese - GMC)

Num sonho de Íris, morto a ouro e brasa, Vêm-me lembranças doutro Tempo azul Que me oscila entre véus de tule - Um tempo esguio e leve, um tempo-Asa. (...) - Mário Sá-Carneiro, Distante melodia... - In a dream of Iris, dead with gold and embers, Memories come to me of another blue time That oscillates between tulle veils - A slender and light time, a winged time. (...) - Mário Sá-Carneiro, Distant melody...

“La courbe de tes yeux”, a work dedicated to L'Effetto Ensemble, is like all love poems: it projects more than just a glance, the curve of the beloved's eyes, nature that seems to communicate with lovers, their perfumes, all of this enclosed in the flow and gaze of those who love each other. With a voice and a guitar, I thus left the expression of this halo of love imbued in music.

Commissioned by Nomad Duo

Evening Mass Psalm 95, 11a.13a

Commissioned by Arpejo Editora

The ‘Five Songs by Miguel Torga’ for voice and guitar were dedicated to Dora Rodrigues and Rui Gama's L'Effetto Ensemble. The poems, with their intimate aura, chosen and arranged by me, convey in each verse a life marked by their tones, the rebellion and innocence of youth, melancholy, and finally, death.

Commissioned by Arpejo Editora

The name ‘Annuntiatio’ appears as a Latin reference to the biblical moment of the Annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist. ‘And thou shalt call his name John,’ said the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, sealing the coming of the one who would be adopted as the patron saint of the festivities of St. John. This work will metaphorically allude to some moments in this narrative, the annunciation of John's pregnancy, his birth, and his purification through baptism. Downstream from the Christian centrality of the theme is the festival itself, musically embodied in the hubbub of group walks, the sound of bandstand modinhas, the stumbling of the gigantones and cabeçudos, the hammering as a background sound that comes and goes, on what is everyone's night, the night of St. John. - Commissioned by Universidade do Minho / Município de Braga

1. Praeludium 2. Merry-go-round 3. Olho de peixe 4. Classical style (not Rosen) 5. Inter-Sonho... (MSC) 6. Rotundus - Commissioned by Kinetix Duo

That doesn't fit, that doesn't belong, outside the initial idea, on the margins of the mainstream, that's how it had to be... Like so many other works I have written, ‘do not fit’ was made without aesthetic or stylistic predispositions, simply as music. Believing, as I have always believed, that the sounds I have inside me will always be the result of the amalgamation of all the music I have heard, this work once again proposes what had to be, at a given moment, without framing or prejudice, like a blurred photograph.

‘Bucolicae’ is a cycle of six nostalgic pieces in which the narrative is based on musical memories that I have carried with me since childhood, sounds from my imagination mixed between a bucolic village in the Serra do Alvão and musical themes from the province of Trás-os-Montes. - Commissioned by Le printemps de l’Europe 2019 - Dijon

The night expressed in the words of poets, a recurring theme of the identifying interiority of each artist, has been represented with the strongest emotions, it has been the space and time chosen to "say" everything in a less filtered way, everything is felt more violently when the background is the night. It was based on these thoughts that I had for some years about the night and poetry, that in 2017 I wrote "in word the night", a song and piano cycle on poems by Eugénio de Andrade. The poems I chose and ordered belong to two different books, but they deal with the poet's constant theme, of a certain nocturnal self-confession, of that space in which the artist finds himself more than ever, of the night.

E sou já do que fui tão diferente Que, quando por meu nome alguém me chama, Pasmo, quando conheço Que ainda comigo mesmo me pareço. - Éclogas, Luís Vaz de Camões - I wrote “sou já do que fui” (I am what I once was) in 2017 for four-hand piano as part of the “Transmusica” concert cycle, a project led by the duo Jost Costa, consisting of Yseult Jost and Domingos Costa. This work expresses in its DNA essential traits of my way of making music over the years. I recognise in its writing what I am, what I was and, like Camões, I am surprised when I see that my identity as a human being/composer remains unchanged after so long. It is, therefore, a truly autobiographical work, if one can say so. Unable to leave poems or texts behind, this music that speaks of me remains.

‘Transbucólicas’ consists of seven sketches written over a period of ten years. They are extremely fleeting moments that only took their definitive form at the end of 2017. The musical narrative is based on musical memories that I have carried in my ears since the 1980s, sounds from my imagination mixed between pure happiness and a village in the Serra do Alvão, as well as some musical themes from Trás-os-Montes catalogued by Michel Giacometti and Fernando Lopes-Graça. I now present everything together in a cycle, perhaps without the desired aesthetic and technical unity, which will be characterised, if only for that reason, by the common thread and nostalgia of the Trás-os-Montes way of being and feeling.

A tetraktys (from the ancient Greek τετρακτύς) is a Pythagorean representation in the form of a triangle, called a ‘perfect triangle’. For the Pythagoreans, numbers had a direct relationship with matter, considering, for example, the number ‘one’ as a point, ‘two’ as a line, “three” as a surface, and ‘four’ as a solid. Assuming that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, the number ‘ten’ was seen as a kind of set of four elements, the ‘foundation’ of things in the world. The number ‘ten’, according to the Pythagoreans, would correspond to a tetraktys. Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.

Flute from Nuvo and Clara... November music - “Flutz” and “Flutzcla”, composed in 2016, are two pieces with a concrete atmosphere, constructed from various sounds of a plastic flute. All the flute sounds used were played, recorded and manipulated by me, in a work reminiscent of concrete music. In “Flutz” we hear little more than the sound of the plastic flute. In the piece “Flutzcla” the sound of the plastic flute is interrupted by external sounds, sounds coming from the space in which the work was performed.

It was recorded only with sounds from a Nuvo jFlute and a pair of Sontronics STC-1 micros - “Flutz” and “Flutzcla”, composed in 2016, are two pieces with a concrete atmosphere, constructed from various sounds of a plastic flute. All the flute sounds used were played, recorded and manipulated by me, in a work reminiscent of concrete music. In “Flutz” we hear little more than the sound of the plastic flute. In the piece “Flutzcla” the sound of the plastic flute is interrupted by external sounds, sounds coming from the space in which the work was performed.

ANTO Caprichos de lilás, febres esguias, Enlevos de Ópio - Íris-abandono... Saudades de luar, timbre de Outono, Cristal de essências langues, fugidias... O pajem débil das ternuras de cetim, O friorento das carícias magoadas; O princípe das Ilhas transtornadas - Senhor feudal das Torres de marfim... Mário Sá-Carneiro

Me improvising about Kurtag.

A morphing piece about Feldman and Cage!

For obvious reasons dedicated to my friend and pianist Paulo Mesquita. (made with a yamaha c3 piano)

Poem by Miguel Torga

“Wandering” for marimba and flute was written between late 2014 and early 2015. In a vague atmosphere, with no defined direction, the work begins, as if floating, with long notes from the flute over the rapid murmur of the marimba's articulation. Thus, the two soloists advance, with one or another virtuoso flourish, seemingly wandering in a gradual fusion of language and textures. Finally, after the flute has lost its thematic character, they unite in equal articulations and differentiated metrics that lead them to the final cadence.

I wrote Indizível (2015) for flute and piano for Morgana Patriarca, intending it to be a set of miniatures limited to two pages. “Indizível”, a unique work from an album of short pieces written by several composers who were friends of Eduardo Patriarca for the eighteenth birthday of his daughter Morgana, proposes music in an ineffable environment, where not everything is expressed in the normal way, in a minimal space, the space of two empty sheets.

I wrote ‘Missae Breves’ for three-part choir, oboe and organ in response to a commission from Helena Venda Lima and the Coro dos Pequenos Cantores de Esposende choir. My initial reaction to this request left me truly terrified. I did not believe I was capable of such a task, given its spiritual dimension and my personal and musical experience. The choral works I had written previously had always been in fields where I felt relatively comfortable, poetry, popular rhymes, usually in Portuguese. What was proposed to me then took me out of my comfort zone, leading me into the realm of mystery, the mystery of faith in the Latin words of the mass. However, despite all my insecurities, I began and gradually came to believe in the possibility of a successful outcome. At the beginning of the work, the words of the Kyrie appear as if suspended in simple melismas (three per four) over a six-eight time signature, a kind of mechanical barrel organ personified in the combination of organ and oboe. The continuously difficult process of composition continued in the Gloria, where I struggled with a long text that required constant musical adjustments, were it not for the words being the driving force behind every creative process. In the Sanctus, I return to the predominantly virtuous tone of the first lines of the mass, creating a rhythmic atmosphere marked by sudden changes in metre and collages. In the last movement of the work, Agnus Dei, I propose an atmosphere of great immaterial serenity, singularised in a harmonic tonal environment that is not functional, almost mystical. Thus, without believing it would be possible, the work was written in about four months, during which time the powerful sacred words never left me, and I saw all my thoughts immersed in the message of the Latin texts. It was possible after all, even today I find it hard to believe... - Commissioned by Coro de Pequenos Cantores de Esposende

Poem by Sílvia Mota Lopes

“pelo aroma das sílabas” (by the scent of syllables) is a cycle of seven songs for children’s choir and piano, among other instruments. The seven poems, some of the most beautiful Portuguese poetry, were chosen by me with the clear purpose of creating a common thread which, although not narrative, is unique and continuous through its magic, symbolism, surprises, gentle words, colourful sounds, “the aroma of syllables”... Since this is a cycle of songs, the most natural option would be to perform the work in its entirety. However, as the instrumental formations are varied, it is perfectly possible to choose any of the songs individually. In addition to the constant presence of the choir and piano, the chosen instruments, the flute, double bass, viola, bassoon and glockenspiel, create an indelible relationship with each poem. The dramatisation of the key words of the poems is a possibility that I leave open, trusting in the creativity of those responsible for interpreting these songs. In conclusion, I must say that when I think of children's and youth music for choir, nothing occurs to me as more perfect than the sublime union of the poet's words with music. The title given to the entire cycle, ‘pelo aroma das sílabas’ (by the aroma of syllables), taken from one of the verses of the poem ‘Frutos’ by Eugénio de Andrade, clearly conveys the strong connection between syllables/words, their sound, their colour palette, or perhaps their aroma. - Dedications and composition of “Pelo aroma das sílabas” (Through the aroma of syllables) - Segredo (Secret) for children's choir, piano and flute - to my daughter Clara - Poem by Miguel Torga - Bichinho-de-conta (Bead bug) for children's choir, piano and double bass - to António Ângelo Vasconcelos - Poem by Sidónio Muralha - Fruits for children's choir and piano - to Cláudia Nélson - Poem by Eugénio de Andrade - A story to share for children's choir, piano and viola - to Nívea - Poem by Manuel António Pina - Everything upside down for children's choir, piano and bassoon - to my daughter Maria - Poem by Luísa Ducla Soares - Telegram from the prince to Snow White for children's choir and piano - to Sónia - Poem by Alice Vieira - Lullaby for children's choir, piano and bells - to my mother - Poem by António Botto - Commissioned by APEM

I would like to express my special thanks to trombonist Zeferino Pinto, Ricardo Pereira's first teacher, for his help in revising the work ‘Seven, seven...’ for solo trombone.