Vasco Mendonca Signs to Wise Music Group

Wise Music Group has signed a long-term agreement with Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça. Mendonça joins the roster of Éditions Alphonse Leduc alongside Betsy Jolas, Henri Dutilleux, Jacques Ibert, André Jolivet, Elsa Barraine, Olivier Messiaen, Germaine Tailleferre, Nadia Boulanger and Francis Poulenc.

Vasco Mendonça commented: "I am delighted to be joining such a wonderful, historic publisher as Alphonse Leduc - and I hugely look forward to working together with their fantastic team on many exciting projects in the future."

Oscar Zepeda Arias, Head of Wise Music Classical Paris, says: "I am delighted to welcome Vasco Mendonça to Éditions Alphonse Leduc. I met Vasco in 2014 when Kaija Saariaho chose him to be part of the Rolex Mentor and Protegé Arts Initiative.

Since then, I have been captivated by his human approach, his energy, and the power of his unique compositional voice. Proof of this is his Piano Concerto or his recent collaboration with choreographer Tania Carvalho for One of Four Periods in Time. I am very proud that Vasco has joined us in this exciting new era of Leduc."

Vasco Mendonça´s music has been widely performed internationally by groups such as the Asko|Schoenberg Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Axiom Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), São Paulo Symphony [OSESP], Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfonica Casa da Música and Drumming GP.

Mendonça has been commissioned works and featured in major music festivals such as Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Aldeburgh Music, Verbier Festival, Musica Nova Helsinki, Musica Strasbourg, November Music, Gaudeamus Music Week and Morelia Music Festival, and in venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, Lincoln Center, Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, La Monnaie, Kaaitheater, Grand Theatre du Luxembourg, Elbphilharmonie, Centro Cultural Del Bosque, National Sawdust, Concertgebouw Brugge, Kölner Philharmonie, de Singel, Mousonturm Frankfurt, Casa da Música and Gulbenkian Foundation.

His interest in composing for the stage has led him to collaborate with some of the most cutting-edge music-theatre companies in Europe, such as Music Theatre Wales, Muziektheater Transparant and LOD Muziektheater, and with directors such as Katie Mitchell, Michael McCarthy and Luis Miguel Cintra.

Mendonça studied with Klaas de Vries and George Benjamin, and his distinctions include the Lopes Graça Composition Award, ROLEX Mentor and Protegé Arts Initiative (with Kaija Saariaho), Composer-in-Residence at Casa da Música.

His opera The Girl, The Hunter and The Wolf will receive its world premiere at Dutch National Oper on 15 October 2022.

Wise Music Group maintains a global network of standalone offices including London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Copenhagen, Bergamo, Madrid, Paris, Milan, Tokyo and Berlin.

The group's publishing houses and imprints include some of the most famous names in the history of music including Chester Music, G. Schirmer, Associated Music Publishers, Novello & Co, Éditions Alphonse Leduc, Première Music, Le Chant du Monde, Edition Wilhelm Hansen, Unión Musical Ediciones, Bosworth Music GmbH, and Campbell Connelly.

Wise Music Group owns or controls nearly half a million copyrights - including the world's largest independent holding of historic and contemporary classical music - as well as a huge range of popular songs spanning evergreen, jazz, reggae, blues, pop and rock. The group also represents nearly 100 of today's most successful living composers and songwriters working in classical music, opera, ballet, pop, film, television and advertising. Represented composers include Ólafur Arnalds, Hania Rani, Ludovico Einaudi, Philip Glass, Joby Talbot, Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen, Jean Sibelius, Hans Abrahamsen, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Missy Mazzoli, Kaija Saariaho, Samuel Barber and Tan Dun.