The British Council's music work attempts to update perceptions of the United Kingdom overseas and at the same time foster partnerships and valuable long-term friends. One of the areas where we can expect to make a difference is by encouraging the development of international inter-cultural musical collaboration and creative exchanges between the UK and other countries.
In 2004 we had a discussion with the extraordinarily creative Miguel Azguime, a formidable and inspiring advocate for an exciting, experimental, innovative strand of contemporary music making and we found that Miguel's projects aligned themselves closely to the British Council's interests. A project was conceived, a marriage of mutual interest achieved.
The Smith Quartet has the kind of international profile and commitment to dynamic forward-looking programming that makes them ideal partners for both the British Council and Miguel Azguime's vision. The ensemble's diverse range of repertoire and stimulating mix of the acoustic and electro-acoustic demonstrates its enthusiasm for exploring new artistic and stylistic directions. But perhaps most important is the musician's flexibility and willingness to establish fruitful creative cross-cultural collaborations in a spirit of generosity and co-operation.
In Circuits, such pooled values and expertise can only offer the promise of events that deliver much more than the sum of their parts.
Paul Parkinson - Music Projects Manager, Performing Arts, British Council, London
Portuguese New Music and Portuguese composers were until now mostly unknown outside Portugal. This condition has lasted for decades in our country and threatens to continue, since there is no governmental strategic plan concerning the internationalization of Portuguese music.
The challenge that Miso Music Portugal and the Portuguese Music Information Centre face is to overturn such circumstances with the small financial resources available. Therefore, we envisaged the CIRCUITS project to battle against this Status Quo.
We have the versatility and motivation to establish such a rewarding and creative cross-artistic collaboration in an innovation process raised upon cultural enrichment of our world.
We have idealized this as a project based on co-operation and exchange, and since its conception, our ideas received a strong and generous support from the British Council. Later on, others partners around Europe got involved. Currently, several presentations of the CIRCUITS are scheduled and we have the certainty that more will be organized.
It is for us a privilege that the first production of the CIRCUITS will be presented in Paris at "L'Itinéraire II de Nuit", and we are delighted that this initiative gathered the complicity of other institutions like the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Camões Institute.
Paula de Castro Guimarães - Miso Music Portugal Director
Press Release.pdf
Circuits_pressreleaseVilnius.pdf
