Francisco Monteiro

Pianist Francisco Monteiro started his musical studies as a pupil Helena Costa’s in Porto – Portugal, entering later the local music conservatory where he achieved the Superior Piano Course with honour. He is graduated by the Musik Universität Wien – Austria (piano concert class by Noel Flores), the University of Coimbra – Portugal (Master Degree in Musicology) and the University of Sheffield (Ph.D. – Contemporary Music). He also studied analysis and composition with Cândido Lima, Álvaro Salazar (Porto) and Gottfried Scholtz (Vienna – Austria), conducting with Jean-Claude Hartemann and piano interpretation with Marie-Françoise Bucquet (Paris). He took part in several master classes with Vlado Perlemutter, Natalie Pepin, Anne Koscielny, Joseph Palenicek, Moura Castro and Jorg Demus among others. Awarded in national piano competitions, his activity as a pianist includes both solo and chamber presentations. Although is repertoire embraces works from the XVIII century until our days, he is mainly devoted to the 20th century and Portuguese music: he presented premières of works of C. Lima, J. Peixinho, A. Salazar, António Sousa Dias, Fernando Lapa, Christopher Bochmann, Terry W. Owens, Carlos Azevedo, Armando Santiago, Clotilde Rosa, Eurico Carrapatoso and Pedro Rocha. He took part in the Festivals of Udine, Transimeno Lake and Cagliary SpazioMusica (Italy), Essen Contemporary Music Festival (Germany), Bogotá Music Festival (Colombia), Valencia’s and Logroño’s Contemporary Music Festivals (Spain), Baku Music Festival (Romenia), Costa Verde Music Festival, Gulbenkian Contemporary Music Encounters, and the Music Festivals of Porto, Aveiro, Coimbra and Lisbon (Portugal). He also played solo in France, Austria, Italy, Belgium, U.S.A., Germany and in the U.K.. Francisco Monteiro recorded for the Portuguese national radio and television and the CDs "Exposed on the cliffs of the heart" - piano music of Terry Winter Owens and “Lov” – flute, cello and piano trio, playing music of Crumb, Piazolla, Azevedo and Peixinho. He also took part in many CDs concerning Portuguese contemporary music, with works of J. Peixinho, Clotilde Rosa, Christopher Bochmann, António Pinho Vargas, Álvaro Salazar and others. Together with is career as a performer he maintains a regular activity as a composer. His music is much influenced by the Western classical tradition and avant-garde composers of the sixties, and also by traditional Portuguese rural music and rock music. He is Professor in the Polytechnic Institute of Porto - Portugal (School of Education).

(text by Francisco Monteiro)

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Ana Ester Neves (soprano) and Francisco Monteiro (piano) perform Francisco Monteiro's "O Amor" (one of the "Three Alexandre O'Neill Songs").

José Luís Ferreira

Composer José Luís Ferreira (b. 1973, Lisbon) made his First Degree in composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, in 2001, where he studied with Christopher Bochmann, António de Sousa Dias and António Pinho Vargas. He attended several composition courses, workshops and seminars in Portugal with Emmanuel Nunes, Salvatore Sciarrino, Jean-Claude Risset, John Chowning, Per Anders Nilsson, Trevor Wishart e André Bartetski. Presently, he's doing a PhD Music research on Computer Music at Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) in Oporto/ CITAR (Research Center For Science and Technology in Art). His music, for different kinds of instrumentation with or without electronics, has been performed by several portuguese musical ensembles (Remix Ensemble / Orchestrutópica / Sinfonietta de Lisboa / Ricercare / Saxofínia/ Machina Mundi). In 2001, he won the Festival Musica Viva's acusmatic composition contest with the piece “Le bruit d`une tête qui frappe contre les murs d`une très petite cellule”. He also works as a musical assistant (computer music) with several composers performers/ ensembles, namely: Francisco Monteiro, João Madureira, Luís Tinoco, José Júlio Lopes, Orchestrutópica, Orquestra Metropolitana and Machina Mundi. Since 2002, José Luís Ferreira has lectured several courses at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Faculdade de Belas Artes and Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação (ETIC).

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Fernando Lopes-Graça

One of the most proeminent Portuguese composers of the 20th century (b. 1906-d. 1994). He studied composition at the National Conservatoire, in Lisbon, and atended José Viana da Mota's piano virtuosity class. In his first opus, "Variations on a Portuguese Popular Theme", written in 1929, he already shows an interest that will last and grow throughout his work: that on Portuguese traditional music. After a period in Paris, where he studied composition and orchestration with Koechlin, in the late thirties, his return to Portugal brings him to an intense activity as a composer, choir director, pianist, musicologist, critic, essaist, translator, in spite and because of being outcast and forbidden to teach by the dictatorship regime. In the 40s and 50s, he won several composition competitions, founded a concert society and a music magazine. In 1949, he entered the jury at the Béla Bártok International Competition, in Budapest. Together with ethnomusicologist Michel Giacometti, he traveled throughout the country recording work songs, which he later harmonized. His body of work includes many regional songs and others (such as the "Heroic Songs") aimed to be sung by amateur choirs, but also orchestral works, chamber and piano music. He was comissioned a piece by Mstislav Rostropovich, to whom he wrote the "Concerto da Cammera col Violoncello Obbligato". Other major opuses are his "Sinfonia per Orchestra", the two piano concertos, "Requiem for the Victims of Fascism in Portugal", "Song of Love and Death", six piano sonatas, 24 Preludes, "In Memoriam Béla Bártok".

Discography

Fernando Lopes-Graça's Piano Quartet (1st movement), by Francisco Monteiro and members of the Lyra Quartet: