“One of the most interesting aspects of music is, in my opinion, the timbre. From early on, I was always fascinated with the production of unique timbres and sonorities. My initial contact with music was through the electric guitar: an instrument which has a wide range of sonic possibilities, digital and analog effects, techniques, amplification etc. The discovery of percussion took my attention to a broad family of instruments with such diverse and unique sound characteristics. During my career as a percussionist, I have come to gradually realize that every object or existing material can be used as a musical instrument. That revealed an infinite world of sonic possibilities in a way that, for me, one of the primary percussionist’s skills should be the ability to get a sound out of anything, which can be either a traditional musical instrument or an object of any sort.”
Luís Bittencourt is percussionist, composer, artist-researcher and music producer. An active performer in a range of various styles — from classical, folk south american music, free improvisation to contemporary experimental music — Bittencourt is considered “a master of sound experimentation” (Vision Magazine, Portugal) and has performed solo in Europe, Oceania, north and south America. His performances, which are “a torrent of originality” (Casa da Música, Portugal), include first auditions of his own compositions, and by composers Tan Dun, Gabriel Prokofiev, Steve Reich, Vinko Globokar and some contemporary Portuguese composers.
“The plurality of sounds and instruments presented by Luís Bittencourt elevates the artist to the alchemical degree. His body movements are varnished by the playing of lights, turning him into an instantaneous shaman, a kind of high priest of sound.” (Grings Memorabilia, Brazil)
Bittencourt has also been featured in many art and contemporary music festivals, and performed and collaborated with Lee Ranaldo and Leah Singer (Sonic Youth), Jeffrey Ziegler (Kronos Quartet), Phill Niblock, Kuniko Kato, Ney Rosauro, Helga Davis, Katherine Liberovskaya, David Sheppard, Paola Prestini, Found Sound Nation, Ali Hossaini, Gabriel Prokofiev (Non Classical), David Cossin (Bang on a Can), Jon Rose, Miquel Bernat & Drumming GP, Mina Tindle, Emily Hall, among others. As composer and music producer he obtained 1st prize in the contest “Legends of China - Confucius Arts Institute Award 2016” and has already collaborated with different artists and institutions, such as pianist and composer Cecile Elton, Lange Studios, Instagram® and Cannes Lions.
As an artist-researcher, his interests include percussion, sound, musical performance and performance studies, practice-based research, contemporary music, philosophy of music, sound art, extended techniques, unusual instruments and sound sources, instrumentality, improvisation, experimental music and experimentation in music. Bittencourt is author of two pioneer studies, namely Percussion and instrumentality: exploring the performance of unusual instruments and sound sources, a doctoral artistic research, and The use of water as a percussive sound source: analysis of Tan Dun’s Water Music, a master study on the possibilities of water as musical instrument. His investigations have established new insights on experimentation in percussion music and on the instrumentality of found instruments and have been published and presented at many institutions and events around the world, such as the Conservatoire Supèrieur de Musique et Dance de Lyon (FR), Leeds College of Music (UK), Conservatório de Valencia (ES), Guildhall School of Music and Drama (UK), Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (BR), International Summer Course for New Music Darmstadt (DE), Bath Spa University (UK), Queensland Conservatoire/Griffiths University (AU). Bittencourt holds a PhD in Music Performance and a Master in Music Performance from University of Aveiro, Portugal, and a Bachelor Degree in Percussion Performance (Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil). He is also hired researcher in the project “XPerimus: experimentation in music in Portuguese culture: history, contexts and practices in the 20th and 21st centuries” and integrated researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology - Centre of Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md).