António Pinho Vargas (1951)
António Pinho Vargas was born in Vila Nova de Gaia in 1951.
He graduated in History and has the final degree in Piano by the Porto Conservatory. With a scholarship from the Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, he studied three years at the Rotterdam Conservatory, with the composer Klaas de Vries, having majored in Composition in 1990. He attended composition workshops with Nunes, Cage and Andriessen, and composition seminars with Ligeti, in Hungary, and Donatoni, in Italy. He was composition teacher at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (1991-2005) and was decorated by the President of the Portuguese Republic with the commend Order of the Infante D.Henrique, in 1995.
He was music consultant both to The Serralves Foundation (Oporto) between 1994 and 2000, and Centro Cultural de Belem (Lisbon), between 1996 and 1998.
He played jazz since 1974, with musicians such as Kenny Wheeler, Steve Potts, Paolo Fresu, Arild Andersen, Jon Christensen and Adam Rudolph. With his jazz group he performed in many European countries, in Africa and the United States. Having recorded seven CDs he was awarded three times the prize of the Best Instrumental Record of the Year. He composed for theatre and cinema, including João Botelho’s three movies Hard Times (1988), Here On Earth (1993) and Who Are You? (2001 and José Fonseca e Costa’s two movies Five Days, Five Nights (1996) and Fascination (2003) having been awarded with two prizes for the best cinema music.
Since his staying in Holland, António Pinho Vargas composes mainly contemporary music, having reached a preeminent place in the Portuguese music scene.
Among his works there are compositions for ensemble and solo instruments, such as Mirrors (1990) first performed in Amsterdam by Paul Prenen (later performed by Ronald Brautigam, Madalena Soveral, Tania Achot, Gloria Chen-Chocran, Volker Banfield, Miguel Henriques, and others), Monodia (Viena Artis Quartet, Arditti Quartet, The Smith Quartet) Três Versos de Caeiro (Ensemble Nuova Sincronia, Northern Sinfonia, OrchestrUtopica, Remix Ensemble); compositions for orchestra: Acting Out, (under António Saiote, J.R. Encinar , Martin André), A Impaciência de Mahler, (under Michael Zilm, Martin André); for choir and orchestra: Judas secundum Lucam, Joannem, Matthaeum et Marco, (under Fernando Eldoro); and the operas Édipo, Tragédia de Saber and Os Dias Levantados (under João Paulo Santos).
More recent compositions include Six Portraits of Pain (2005) for cello and large ensemble (Anssi Karttunen, cello and Remix Ensemble under Frank Ollu),Graffiti [just forms] ( 2006) for large orchestra (OSP under Lothar Königs), and the chamber opera A little madness in the spring (2006) at Casa da Música (Remix Ensemble under Franck Ollu).
He participated at the Festival Other Minds V, in S.Francisco, USA (1999); at the International Music Theatre Workshop, at Oper-am-Rhein in Dusseldorf, and, with a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation, in 2001, he stayed at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Italy.
Emi Classics released two CDs with his works Monodia (1995) and the opera Os Dias Levantados (2004) and several other pieces were recorded by The Northern Sinfonia, Arditti Quartet, The Galliard Ensemble, The Scottish Brass Ensemble and others. The composer’s first book - Sobre Música (On Music) - essays, texts and interviews, was edited in 2002, by Afrontamento.
His compositions have been commissioned or sponsored by institutions such as Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, Culturgest, Lisbon’s 94 – European Capital of Culture, Expo’98, Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, Porto’2001 – European Capital of Culture.
This composer has 10 works on AvA:
