The Musa prize, having a monetary value of 3,000 euros, was awarded to this young composer from Porto for his composition “Um Adeus aos Deuses” (“A Goodbye to the Gods”) for narrator and ‘Pierrot ensemble’. It pays homage to Ruben A. — pseudonym of the Portuguese writer, novelist, essayist and historian Ruben Alfredo Andresen Leitão — and was based upon his homonymous work. Miguel Resende Bastos will be part of the next season of MPMP – movimento patrimonial pela música portuguesa, as a resident composer, with the MPMP Ensemble recording in the studio. The Musa Award aims to distinguish the excellence of contemporary composition and, in this context, to stimulate and promote the Portuguese language as an expressive vehicle.
This year the MPMP – Patrimonial Movement for Portuguese Music and the Glosas Journal (published by the MPMP) celebrate their 10th anniversary. The public presentation of this project, which has been actively contributing for the dissemination of the work by composers active in Portugal and throughout the lusophone universe, took place on April 29 2010, at the National Conservatoire in Lisbon. To celebrate the anniversary the MPMP has prepared a mini-festival with concerts, new releases, round-tables and presentation of new project. Due to the present pandemic the festival had to be postponed, however the celebrations took on an on-line form. In this sense the Glosas Journal Website has published more than 30 testimonies by the MPMP partners, collaborators, friends and associates. Last month in the context of the festivities the MPMP also announced the winner of the Musa Award, one of the more recent projects dedicated to contemporary creation, organised by the MPMP with the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto. This time the Award’s theme was the 100th anniversary of the writer Ruben A. (1920-75) and the distinction was given to the composer Miguel Resende Bastos (n. 1995), following the decision of the jury constituted by the composers Andreia Pinto Correia, Januibe Tejera and the conductor Jan Wierzba. Miguel Resende Bastos graduated from Compositon at the ESMAE in Porto and he continues his studies in Rotterdam (the Netherlands). The winning score of his authorship, Um adeus aos deuses, is inspired in a homonymous work by Ruben A., published in 1963 in form of a travel diary, with the subtitle Greece.