Sara Braga Simões

Photo: Alfredo Rocha

Soprano Sara Braga Simoes is a winner of several national and international prizes. Operatic Roles include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte - Mozart) Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro – Mozart), Zerlina (Don Giovanni – Mozart), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel - E. Humperdinck), Despina (Così fan Tutte - W.A. Mozart), The Governess (The Turn of the Screw – B. Britten), Spinalba (La Spinalba - F. António de Almeida), Sleeping Beauty (Sleeping Beauty – O. Respighi), Jenny (Three sisters who are not sisters – N. Rorem), Rowan (The Little Sweep - B. Britten). She sang Ein Deutsches Requiem – Brahms, Des Knabem Wunderhorn – Mahler, E vo - Berio, Trois poèmes de Stephan Mallarmé - M.Ravel, Nuits d’étè - H.Berlioz, Te Deum - Dvorack, Madrigals (Book I) - George Crumb, Shîr - João Pedro Oliveira*, D’une saison… l’autre - A. Lemeland*, Lacrymosa - Yanov-Yanovsky, Magnificat, Dixit Dominus and Gloria - A.Vivaldi, The Devil’s Suite - Peter Maxwell Davies, Christmas Oratorio - Saint-Saëns, Stabat Mater - G.B.Pergolesi and Haddock’s Eyes - David Del Tredici. Sara was directed by Martin André, Cesário Costa, Laurence Cummings, Marc Tardue, Osvaldo Ferreira, Stefan Asbury, Peter Rundell, Ferreira Lobo, Manuel Ivo Cruz, Brad Cohen, Peter Birgamin, Armando Vidal, Jaroslav Mikus, Gunther Arglebe, Yoichi Sugyiana, among others. Engagements for this season include her London debut with the world premier of Pedro Amaral’s opera in London: The Dream, Nino Rota’s Aladin (as The Princess) and George Benjamin’s A Mind of winter in Centro Cultural de Belém (Lisbon). (text by Sara Braga Simões)

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Carlos Marecos

Composer Carlos Marecos (b. 1963, Lisbon) graduated in Composition, in 1999, at the Lisbon Superior School of Music, where he studied with Eurico Carrapatoso, António Pinho Vargas and Christopher Bochmann. He won the composition prize Prémio Lopes-Graça in 1999 and 2000. He has received commissions from numerous important cultural entities including Culturgest, the Gulbenkian Foundation Centre for Modern Art (ACART), the World Exhibition - Lisbon 1998, OrchestrUtópica, the Estoril International Music Festival and Cistermúsica - Alcobaça Music Festival. He directs the chamber ensemble “Ensemble Portátil”, which is dedicated to contemporary repertoire and modern settings of Portuguese folk music. In the areas of theatre and dance, he has worked with the stage directors João Brites, Raul Atalaia, Luís Miguel Cintra, as well as the choreographers Madalena Victorino and Vera Mantero. Since 2002, Marecos has been developing staged works regularly with a team of artists including soprano Margarida Marecos, stage director Paulo Lages, actor Guilherme Filipe, set designer Acácio de Carvalho and costume designer Manuela Bronze. Together, they staged productions such as “La Serva Padrona/A Criada Patroa” (a modern version of Pergolesi’s intermezzo musicalle, with orchestration by Marecos – 2002), “Caminho ao Céu” (musical theatre, staged by Paulo Lages - 2003) and “O Fim – Ópera Íntima” (a chamber opera with libretto by Paulo Lages, based on the play by António Patrício - 2004). Outside Portugal, his music has been performed in Spain, France, England, Denmark, Colombia and the USA. He is currently earning a doctorate in musical research at the University of Aveiro, with the composers João Pedro Oliveira and Christopher Bochmann. He teaches composition and analysis at the Lisbon Superior School of Music and at the Dom Dinis Conservatory in Odivelas.

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Carlos Marecos' opera "Outro Fim", by Margarida Marecos (soprano), Guilherme Filipe (actor), cond. Humberto Castanheira (2nd Renaissance of Portuguese Composition project on You Tube):

Edson Zampronha

Edson Zampronha (Rio de Janeiro, 1963) is a Brazilian-Italian composer. He has received two awards from the São Paulo Association of Art Criticism, Brazil. In 2005 he won, together with SCIArts Group, the 6th Sergio Motta Award, the most outstanding prize on Art and Technology in Brazil, for the installation Poetic Attractor. He has received commissions from different groups and institutions, as from the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, in Köln (Germany) for the cultural activities during the Soccer World Cup 2006; from the designer María Lafuente for her catwalk show at the Pasarela Cibeles 2006 (Madrid, Spain), and from the São Paulo State Symphonic Band for the 100th Anniversary of Sao Paulo State Gallery in 2005 (São Paulo, Brazil). He has worked as a guest composer in different institutions as LIEM-CDMC (Madrid, Spain), Phonos Foundation (Barcelona, Spain), and the University of Birmingham (England). His compositions are included in two CDs fully dedicated to his works (CD Sensibile and CD Modelagens) and in other thirteen CDs released by different record labels and institutions. As a performer, he has presented himself as a pianist an electroacoustic performer, and has included works by Portuguese composers in his repertoire (as by João Pedro Oliveira). He is Researcher at the Valladolid University, Spain. He has a Ph.D. in Communication and Semiotics – Arts – by the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, and he has developed a Post-Doctorate research on Music at the University of Helsinki (Finland). He has a Master in Musical Composition by the Rio de Janeiro Federal University. He is the author of the book Notação, Representação e Composição (São Paulo: Annablume) and he is the editor, with Maria de Lourdes Sekeff, of the book series Arte e Cultura – Estudos Interdisciplinares – 4 volumes. (text by Edson Zampronha)

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Madalena Soveral

Madalena Soveral was born in Porto, where she studied music, first under mother guidance, Hélia Soveral, later under Reine Gianoli, Marian Rybicki and Claude Helffer. In 1966 she was awarded the “900 Musicale Europeo” prize, in Naples (Italy). Madalena Soveral has given regular concerts since 1990, both solo and with orchestra, as well as various forms of chamber music festivals of Naples, Santiago de Compostela, Sceaux, Festival de Montpellier-Radio France, Mantova (Italy), The UNESCO Twentieth Century Music Festival (Paris), Música Nova (Brasil), The 1st Lisbon Festival of Contemporary Musics (Lisbon, T.N.S.C.), to name but a few. During her career, she has focused on a 20th century repertoire working with a variety of composers and performers. She has performed the world premiere of numerous pieces, including those written especially for her: Estudos de Sonoridades (Filipe Pires), Interrogations (Miguel Graça Moura), Dominos (Sharon Kanach), In Tempore, for piano and electronic (João Pedro Oliveira), and Episode, for two pianos and two percussions (Francis Bayer). Coordenator Professor at the Escola Superior de Música e das Artes do Espectáculo do Porto, she’s been working in the last hears on a research project on 20th Century Portuguese Piano Music, at the University of Paris 8. Étude Analytique des Litanies du feu et de la mer d’Emmanuel Nunes, carried out between 1997-99, is the first part of that work. In 2005 she completed the Doctorat in Music with the teses Quatre compositeurs, Quatre oeuvres: la musique portugaise pour piano des années 90, about the piano’s compositions by António Pinho Vargas, Filipe Pires, João Pedro Oliveira and João Rafael. Since 2006 she joined the research Center CESEM of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. (adapted from text by Madalena Soveral)

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Rui Penha

Composer and conductor Rui Penha was born in Oporto. At the age of six he started studying piano and harpsichord. In 2006, he graduated in Music Education and Composition from the University of Aveiro, where he studied under Sara Carvalho and João Pedro Oliveira. He has also studied with Emmanuel Nunes, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann and Louis Andriessen, among others, participating actively in Workshops and Master Classes. In 2007, he began his doctoral research under João Pedro Oliveira. He studied conducting with Ralph Allwood, Mike Brewer, Péter Erdei and Jean-Sébastien Béreau, among others. He is the conductor of the contemporary ensemble Momentum Ensemble, with whom he has premiered and recorded works of some of Portugal's foremost composers. He is also an interpreter of live electroacoustic music, both as a soloist and in chamber music. He was awarded some prizes, including the 1st prize in the Prémio Nacional de Composição Jorge Peixinho and an honorable mention in the Música Viva competition. He was selected twice for the Gulbenkian Orchestra Workshop for Young Composers and for the Young Composers' Meeting 2007(Netherlands). He has composed music for cinema, tv, radio and interactive installations. He’s been invited as a speaker in conferences and as active participant in international symposiums, being also a programmer of musical software. He was awarded a mention for the whole of the pedagogical work in the Lomus 2008 - International Music Software Contest. His works have been played in several countries, by some foremost groups as the Arditti Quartet, Gulbenkian Orchestra and Orkest ‘de ereprijs’ and soloists as Pedro Carneiro and Adam Wodnicki. Some of his works have been published, both in scores and CDs. He teaches at the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro and he is also a consultant of the Education Service at Casa da Música (Oporto).(adapted from text by Rui Penha)

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Jaime Reis

Photo: Ana Lima

Composer Jaime Reis started studying music at five, in Seia, with ethnomusicologist António Tilly. He started composing at 12, studying at Conservatório de Música in Seia and Viseu. Between 17 and 22, he concluded a music teaching degree in the University of Aveiro, where he studied composition and electronic music with Isabel Soveral and João Pedro Oliveira. He finished a doctoral course in Social Sciences in Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where he's pursuing doctoral studies in Musicology with Professors Salwa Castelo-Branco and Emmanuel Nunes, whose composition seminars he attends regularly, namely those of Gulbenkian Foundation. He also attended Stockhausen’s summer courses (Kürten). He was given a mention on the 1st and 2nd Jorge Peixinho Contest, he was selected thrice for the Gulbenkian Workshop for Young Composers, his music was selected to be presented at the ICMC 2005 (Barcelona). Besides his activity as a composer, he is artistic directot of festivals Days of Portuguese Music in Krakow and Days of Electroacoustic Music, in Portugal. Conferences: University of Aveiro, Music Academy in Krakow and Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, among others; sonorization of documentaries and multimedia presentations; research fellow for the Portuguese Music Information Centre and for INET (Ethnomusicology Institute – Universidade Nova de Lisboa), where he develops studies about Portuguese music; he teaches and is co-director of Conservatório de Música in Seia. His music has been presented, among others, in Portugal (Festival Música Viva and Festival de Música de Aveiro), in Poland, Turkey, France, Austria (Hörfest 05, Graz), where he was invited composer to premiere is piece Lysozyme Synthesis, and Belgium (Ghent), where he premiere his piece Density Study, commissioned by Logos Foundation. In 2006/2007 he was composer in residence at Laboratory of Electroacoustic Creation (Miso Music, Portugal) and at Visby International Centre for Composers (2007). (adapted from text by Jaime Reis)

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Ana Telles

Pianist Ana Telles has pursued musical studies in Lisbon and New York. She has graduated from Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Manhattan School of Music and New York University. She has studied piano with Sara D. Buechner, Nina Svetlanova, Dmitry Paperno, Sequeira Costa and Alicia de Larrocha, as well as chamber music with Isidore Cohen and Sylvia Rosenberg, among others. She has devoted much attention to the study and interpretation of Messiaen’s piano music and has played all his works for piano and small orchestra plus a few others. She studied privately with Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen. She’s very much committed to the cause of contemporary music and has worked closely with composers such as Philippe Hurel, Emmanuel Nunes, João Pedro Oliveira, Pedro Amaral, Christopher Bochmann, Alain Bioteau, João Rafael, Carlos Caires, Guy Leclerq, Alexandre Delgado, José Júlio Lopes, Joaquim Santos, Thomas Bloch and Lucya Dugloszewski. She plays regularly in Portugal, Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Cuba, Brasil, Taiwan and the USA, as a soloist or integrated in chamber music groups, and participated in festivals in Portugal and abroad. She played as a soloist with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, the Classical Orchestra of Madeira, the “Filarmonia das Beiras” Orchestra and the OrchestrUtópica (all from Portugal), among others. She currently prepares a doctoral thesis on Portuguese composer Luís de Freitas Branco’s piano music at the Paris IV University (Sorbonne) and the University of Évora (Portugal). In addition, she produces musical programmes for the Portuguese classical radio station and teaches at ISEIT (Instituto Piaget), Almada (Portugal). (adapted from text by Ana Telles)

Ana Telles plays Joaquim dos Santos' 1st Piano Concerto (1st mov.), with Orchestra Nova Amadeus, cond. Jean Sebastian Béreau:

Also on You Tube:
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=-da4nQ1cDM8
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=YaIuVeasyaQ
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtnyNlCx8c