Born in Lisbon in 1960, Miguel Azguime, Portuguese composer, poet and percussionist and founder of the Miso Ensemble (a flute and percussion duet), has written for various instrumental combinations with or without voices and with or without electronic instruments. A producer with Portuguese national radio, and the founder of the Portuguese New Music Information Centre, he is one of the most active figures in contemporary music in his country.
Miguel Azguime handles words and music with a combination of genius and lightness, which cleverly counter the reputation of austerity that contemporary music sometimes carries. Both lyrical and entertaining, his polymorphic works amaze and attract both lovers of music and those new to it.
His work as a composer is shot through with aesthetic freedom and numerous different sources of inspiration.
On hearing the first note, the listener is immediately struck by an incandescent beauty in which the physical presence of the instruments mixes with an electronic play of light. The energy and rhythm give life to a highly melodic musical phrase in which melismas play an important role.
Like ten or so other composers, Miguel Azguime has written for the CENTQUATRE a piece lasting precisely 104 seconds, a commission involving a fascinating combination of figures and constraints. These compositions will be accessible on line to enable you to discover different and distant universes in the field of contemporary music, all too often reserved for initiates only. They will then be performed in the CENTQUATRE after it opens.
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