BIO

Carlos Guedes (Porto, PT, 1968) writes music for live performances, dance, theatre, film and train stations, and designs site-specific installations.

His music is eclectic, combining influences that range from industrial to world music, from Western erudite traditions to trans-cultural improvisation. Frequently integrating computational technologies into his practice, Guedes further expands the possibilities of musical expression.

With over 100 public premieres worldwide, his compositions have been performed at venues such as The Kitchen and Judson Church in New York City (US), the NYUAD Arts Center in Abu Dhabi (AE), and the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju (South Korea, KR), and at festivals including the Beijing Modern Music Festival (CN), the London Design Biennale (UK), SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, Texas (US), and the Sharjah Flag Island Festival in Sharjah (AE). His work has been presented at two World Expos (Expo 98 in Lisbon, PT, and Dubai 2020, AE), COP 28 (Dubai, AE), two European Capitals of Culture (Porto 2001 and Guimarães 2012, both PT), and even aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

A composer whose work pushes artistic boundaries, Carlos Guedes embraces collaboration as a central part of his creative practice. Recent collaborations include award-winning projects such as Formation of Soof (London Design Biennale Theme Award Medal); Time Poetries, a 56-minute cycle for percussion and electronics premiered in 2024 by Drumming GP in Seville, Spain, and released by NEOS Music in March 2026; and the first music commission from the Abu Dhabi UNESCO Creative City of Music — a transcultural project bringing together Gnawa, traditional Emirati music, jazz and electronic music, presented at the Culture Summit 2025 (Abu Dhabi, AE) under his musical direction.

His EP Far Out was streamed from the ISS in 2024. Recent stage works include music for Esta hora de espanto (2025), a choreography by Né Barros premiered at the National Theatre in Porto, and Vidro Pantera (2026) by Teatro de Ferro, premiered at Teatro das Figuras in Faro, Portugal.

Carlos Guedes is a Professor of Music at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) and a researcher and co-founder of the Music and Sound Cultures (MaSC) research group, dedicated to understanding and disseminating musical culture in the Arab world and neighboring regions, through computational and humanistic methods.

He is also a General Chair of ISMIR 2026, the leading international conference on Music Information Retrieval.