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)

Webpage

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

Alexandra Mascolo-David

‘A splendid pianist refined, searching and expressive, and her playing is loaded with insight and interpretative detail’. So wrote The Washington Post, after Alexandra Mascolo-David’s performance at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the nation’s capital. She has performed and led workshops and master classes in Europe, China, and the Americas, including a New York debut recital at Carnegie Hall in May 2004, which was favorably reviewed in The New York Concert Review. In recent years, she has centered her repertoire around the evocative piano music of Portuguese and Brazilian composers, especially that of Francisco Mignone. She is in the forefront of presenting Mignone’s piano music, and her performances, especially of his ‘Valsas brasileiras’ (Brazilian Waltzes), have been widely acclaimed. She recently received a Research Excellence Grant from Central Michigan University to record Francisco Mignone¹s Fantasias Brasileiras ‘Brazilian Fantasies’ for piano and orchestra with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, under Maestro Raymond Harvey, for the White Pine Music recording label, in a 2010 release. In addition to performing traditional solo and chamber literature, she has also championed works by contemporary American composers Daniel McCarthy, Derek Bermel, David Gillingham, Augusta Read Thomas, and David Maslanka. Noting her performance in David Maslanka’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Winds and Percussion, released by Albany Records in 2005, the American Record Guide wrote, ‘Ms. Mascolo-David dispatches the difficult solo part with alarming ease.’ Another CD, featuring music of Latin America for piano and cello with 14 year-old cellist Gabriel Cabezas, winner of the Ninth Sphinx International Competition, was released on the White Pine Music label in February of 2007. Ms. Mascolo-David has recently performed for the Fontana Chamber Arts Summer Festival in Kalamazoo, and for the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard Festival Summer Camp with Brazilian pianist Rubia Santos, with whom she founded the BelleDonne piano duo. She has taught at the Interlochen Arts camp, at Iowa State University, and currently is Professor of Piano at Central Michigan University. She is also a most sought out and devoted teacher. American and international students attend Central Michigan University, in order to join her studio. Her pupils have won numerous auditions and competitions and they all have achieved much success after graduation. (from text by Alexandra Mascolo-David)

website

Alexandra Mascolo-David plays Francisco Mignone's Waltz 12:

Ana Queirós

Award winner in national and international competitions, portuguese pianist Ana Queirós performs regularly in Portugal, Brazil (Portuguese Music tour in São Paulo, Belém and Vitória), Germany (Neckargemund Klavierwoche, Heidelberg and Weissber Festivals), Spain, Italy (Festival Internazionale de Pianoforte Firenze), USA (New York) and Mozambique (Maputo International Music Festival). A graduate from the Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Luis Pipa, J. Alexandre Reis and Pedro Burmester in Portugal and obtained her Master of Music in Piano Performance degree as a scholarhip student of Dr. Solomon Mikovsky. She also studied in Madrid with Galina Egyazarova and attended masterclasses by Paul Badura-Skoda, Vitaly Margulis, Pierre Reach, Vladimir Viardo, Dimitri Bashkirov, Tania Achot, Laszlo Simon and Charles Spencer, among others, in Germany and Spain. With an intense musical activity, Ana performs regularly in both solo, with orchestra and chamber music concerts. Besides Doppio Ensemble, she is also the founder of TriArt with French composer and percussionist Jean-François Lézé and premiered several works by Portuguese and French composers. She is in the faculty of Braga University and Oporto Music Conservatory and also collaborates with Oporto National Orchestra and ESMAE. Her musical studies have been supported by Manhattan School of Music, Centro Nacional de Cultura and Calouste Gulbenkian Foudation. Next engagements include concerts and masterclasses in Spain, Italy, Germany and USA.
(Text by Ana Queirós)

Blog

Fausto Neves

Pianist Fausto Neves initiated his studies with his parents and from a very early age with Helena Costa, in Oporto. Through her, Robert Weisz (Canada - Quebec) and Harry Datyner (Switzerland - Geneve) he contacted the great pianistic tradition of Vianna da Motta, Edwin Fischer, Alfred Cortot, Marguerite Long and Dinu Lipatti. Graduated by the Oporto Conservatory (1977), he was awarded with the Virtuosity Prize of the Geneva Conservatory (1982) and invited to teach in this school. Fausto Neves began performing to a widespread audience very early, being frequently invited to play at most important musical events in Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Brazil, Canada and France. He was soloist with several orchestras under conductors like Arpad Gerezs, Gunther Arglebe, Graça Moura, Álvaro Salazar, Kamen Goleminov, Fernando Eldoro, Marc Tardue, Ferreira Lobo, Philippo Zigante, Cesário Costa, António Lourenço or Pearce de Azevedo. He has often recorded for RDP or RTP (Portugal) and TV Cultura (Brazil). His large repertoire, embracing from baroque to contemporary periods, gives a special attention to Portuguese Music. He has performed first auditions by Lopes-Graça, Eduardo Patriarca, Amílcar Vasques Dias and Cândido Lima and has divulged in Portugal composers like Ramon Barce, Charles Griffes, Frank Martin or Karol Szymanowsky. He has collaborated with other soloists on various occasions namely violoncellist Gisela Neves (CD ”Alla Danza”) and pianist Pedro Burmester together with percussionists Miquel Bernat and Manuel Campos integrating a piano and percussion quartet. His pedagogic activity included teaching at the Geneva and Sion Music Conservatories (Switzerland), Oporto Conservatory and Superior School of Music. At present he is invited Professor in Aveiro University. Fausto Neves holds the first prize in the “Cidade da Covilhã” contest among others. He is regularly invited to integrate juries in national and international contests as well as masterclasses. (from text by Fausto Neves)

Luís Costa

Composer Luís Costa was born in São Pedro de Farelães in 1879 and died in Oporto in 1960. After completing his studies with Bernardo Moreira de Sá, he left for Germany, where he studied with Viana da Mota, Stavenhagen, Ansorge and Busoni. In parallel with his career as a soloist pianist, he worked with remarkable artists such as the cellists Casals, Hekking, Suggia and violinists Enesco and Aránye as well as the Rosé and Chaumont quartets. He taught at the Oporto Music Conservatory of which he was also director. He was a teacher of rare distinction due to both his natural gifts and his vast culture as well as deep musical knowledge. He taught and influenced whole generations of pianists as far as both aesthetics and professional ethics were concerned. As Artistic Director of the "Orpheon Portuense" he had a noteworthy action. At his invitation, some of the most remarkable artists of his time visited and performed in Oporto. Namely, he was responsible for Maurice Ravel's visit, in 1928. In nature he always found an endless source of inspiration that can be found in the titles and atmospheres of many of his piano compositions. His friendship with his master Moreira de Sá, a celebrated encyclopaedist and a violinist keen on chamber music, left him a taste for ensemble music which later translated into his professional life as a pianist and composer. His chamber music works are proof of the above. He was a cultivated musician interested in all arts and a friend of sculptors, painters, poets and writers. He was captivated by the magic of poetry. Thus were born works for piano and singing that were not irrelevant in the context of his work. (adapted from text by Maria Teresa Macedo, in PMIC)

Bruno Belthoise

Photo: Christof Aubrian

Since he was awarded the Prix de la Fondation de France in 1988 and graduated from the Ecole Normale de Musique of Paris, pianist Bruno Belthoise has always liked surprising people with his choice of repertoire. A discoverer of music scores and an authority on 20th century Portuguese music, he has recorded five monographs (Disques Coriolan) that were just as many world premieres. He has delivered lectures and given recitals in Europe and in America and collaborates with Portuguese radio station Antena 2 on a regular basis for live concerts and recordings. His contribution toward making this music known has been encouraged by the most prestigious institutions in Portugal (Ministery of Culture, Gulbenkian Fondation, Camões Institut). Prize-winner of the Fondation Laurent-Vibert in 1991 and 1992 and “Classical Revelation” of ADAMI in 1997, he’s been invited to numerous festivals in France. His repertoire ranges from J.S. Bach to contemporary composers such as Alexandre Delgado, Sérgio Azevedo and Emmanuel Hieaux. He conceived and recorded three albums for La Librairie Sonore. Thanks to the performances he put together for young audiences like Babar et autres histoires, Hänsel and Gretel, Les aventures de Poucette, he gave tour concerts to thousands of children throughout France and in French-speaking countries. His need for diversity in the means of expression at his disposal led him to meet Syrian singer-composer Abed Azrié. Together they set up recitals and conceived an album, Chants d’amour et d’ivresse. He also composed a wind quintet for The Concert Impromptu. Since 2003 he’s been working as a pianist, composer and actor with the Compagnie Alain Rais. Inspired by the theatre and poetry, he ranges from Federico Garcia Lorca to Habib Tengour, lingering over René Char’s dazzling language and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva’s vibrant painting. (adapted from text by Bruno Belthoise)

webpage

My Space

Discography

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)

Webpage

Nicholas McNair

Pianist Nicholas McNair, resident in Portugal since 1980, likes to see all his musical activity, composing, performing, preparation, editing, improvising or teaching, as part of a single whole. Head chorister of Canterbury Cathedral at the age of 12, he later studied at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music. In London he wrote a series of commissioned chamber and choral works supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain, the RVW Trust and other private foundations. The British Council sponsored a concert of his works in Queluz Palace, Portugal in May 1991, and commissioned a cantata “Magnificat” in 1992. He worked with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, researching and preparing for performance the principal operas of Mozart and Beethoven, all recorded by Deutsche Grammophon-Archiv. His editions also include the operas Antigono by Antonio Mazzoni (Lisbon October 1755) and La Notte Critica by Niccolò Piccinni (Lisbon 1767). A teacher at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon, he works frequently with the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra as organist and pianist. He has collaborated as editor, repetiteur or composer, with stage directors and composers such as Robert Wilson and Philip Glass (Lisbon, Madrid, New York), Carina Reich and Bogdan Szyber (Lisbon, Stockholm), Terry Jones and Luís Tinoco (Lisbon), António Pinho Vargas, Luís Bragança Gil, Tim Carroll, Paulo Matos, André Gago etc. He has created live music for 150 silent films, appearing also in the Cannes Festival of 1995 and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., in 1997. He gave a recital of improvisation at the 1st Mafra Festival (1997), and the first of his 8 CDs, “Classical Improvisations”, was released by Eroica in 1998. His improvisations (live and in transcription) have been used in performances with poets and actors such as André Gago, and in concerts of his works (e.g. Mãe d’Água, Lisboa March 2003). (text by Nicholas McNair)

Miguel Henriques

Miguel Henriques has devoted his attention to major works of the pianistic repertoire. His recital programmes include pieces from different styles and periods from Bach to Beethoven, Chopin, Janácek, Schubert, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Scriabine, Shostakovitch, Messiaen, Schnittke, Lopes-Graça and António Pinho Vargas. From these two well celebrated Portuguese composers are also his last recordings on CD. Born in the city of Porto (Portugal), graduated at the Lisbon and Porto Conservatories and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Miguel Henriques took his master's degree at the University of Kansas in the United States. Complementary fields of professional activity in Musicology, Aesthetics, Composition, Conducting, Dramatic Expression, and Piano Methodology. Professor of piano at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, Miguel Henriques is regularly invited to teach in masterclasses in Portugal and abroad. (text by Miguel Henriques)

Webpage
Discography

Miguel Henriques plays António Fragoso's Prelude (from "Petite Suite"):

Luísa Tender

Pianist Luísa Tender was born in Porto, Portugal, in 1977. She had her first piano lessons at the age of four. After graduating from Escola Superior de Música in Porto as a pupil of Pedro Burmester, she continued her musical studies with Vitaly Margulis in Los Angeles and Irina Zaritskaya at the Royal College of Music in London. She was awarded the degree of Master of Music in Performance Studies from the Royal College of Music in 2002. She undertook further piano study with Artur Pizarro in Brighton in 2003, and in 2004 she was awarded the Diplôme Superieur d’Exécution from the École Normale de Musique in Paris, as a student of Marian Rybicki. In recent years, she has given solo and chamber music recitals in most of the main Portuguese concert halls and international music festivals, together with performances in Spain, Holland, Italy, Cyprus and Brazil. She has recorded solo and chamber works by Scarlatti, Brahms, Prokofiev and Berg for the Portuguese national broadcast. A recent review of her all-Schubert recital in Matosinhos in 2003 referred to her playing as ‘very moving, whilst never losing attention to details’, whilst her Sintra International Festival recital in 2004 was praised for its ‘lovely freshness’. She’s been the recipient of a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and a study support grant from the Royal College of Music. She is currently a professor of music at Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas (ESART) in Castelo Branco, where she teaches Music Analysis and Chamber Music. (adapted from text by Luísa Tender)

Discography

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)

Discography

MIC page

Artur Pizarro

Photo by Sven Arnstein

Renowned for his lyrical poeticism and outstanding virtuosity, Artur Pizarro won the Leeds International Piano Competition in 1990. He performs regularly throughout the world with the leading orchestras and the world’s most distinguished conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Sir Simon Rattle & Sir Charles Mackerras. As a recitalist he has performed at many of the world’s most prestigious venues and festivals including Washington’s Kennedy Centre, The Wigmore Hall, The Aldeburgh Festival, Neues Gewandhaus, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Theatre du Chatelet, Musee D’Orsay, Zurich Tonhalle, the BBC Proms and the NHK and Orchard Halls in Japan. His regular chamber music appearances have partnered him with Raphael Oleg, Christian Altenburger, Truls Mork, Toby Hoffmann, the St Lawrence, Muir & Petersen Quartets. In 2005, he founded the ‘Pizarro Trio’ with violinist Raphael Oleg and cellist Josephine Knight. He has recorded extensively for Collins Classics, Hyperion Records, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos and Linn Records, for which he released 2 CDs of Beethoven Piano Sonatas, 2 CDs with works by Chopin and also Ravel’s complete piano works, plus a CD of Rimsky-Korsakov’s piano duo music with Vita Panomariovaite. Recent recording also include Rodrigo’s complete piano works, for Naxos (chosen as Editors Choice in Gramophone Magazine) and the complete Lizst Hungarian Rhapsodies for Brilliant Classics. Throughout 2003-04 he performed the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Sonatas in London. All 8 concerts were broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Performance on 3’ and the cycle earned him a Royal Philharmonic Society Award Nomination for ‘Best Series’. The 06-07 season included the complete solo works of Ravel & Debussy in London broadcast live by BBC Radio 3 and also performed Lisbon & Denmark. (adapted from text in Artur Pizarro’s webpage)

Discography

Gilda Oswaldo Cruz

Brazilian pianist Gilda Oswaldo Cruz was born in Rio de Janeiro, where she began her musical studies. She graduated at the Escola de Música of the Rio de Janeiro Federal University with highest honours. After finishing the virtuosity course at the Musik Hochschule in Vienna, Austria, under the guidance of Hans Graf and Bruno Seidlhofer, Gilda Oswaldo Cruz got the first prize at the Elena Rombro-Stepanow International Competition. After further studies in Barcelona, she continued her concert career in Europe and South America. She lives presently in Lisbon, Portugal, and specializes in Brazilian and contemporary music, besides the solo and chamber-music repertoire for her instrument. Her first CD dedicated to piano works by Claudio Santoro, the most important Brazilian composer of his generation, was issued in Rio de Janeiro by Biscoitofino in 2001, getting excellent reviews. Her second CD, dedicated to the same composer, offers the first performance of several unpublished masterworks by Amazon-born Santoro. This CD has been released and sucessfully presented in Brazil, Portugal and Spain. In 2007 Gilda Oswaldo Cruz produced a series of fourteen radio programmes dedicated to the music of Arnold Schoenberg. The series was commissioned by Antena 2, the classical music official radio of Portugal, and broadcast twice in Brazil by the Rádio-Mec, the state-owned radio station of Brazil. In 2008, the same Antena 2 commissioned and broadcast a series of thirteen radio programmes about Heitor Villa-Lobos. This year, the 50th anniversary of the death of Villa-Lobos, Gilda Oswaldo Cruz will be recording a new CD with the Bachianas nº 4 and the sixteen Cirandas for piano solo, at the studio of label Biscoitofino, in Rio de Janeiro. (text by Gilda Oswaldo Cruz)

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

João Vasco

Pianist João Vasco was born in the village of Sintra in 1976. Being a piano teacher both at Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa and Conservatório Metropolitano de Música de Lisboa, his daily life has been divided between teaching and the stages. He has performed in Spain (Badajoz, Valladolid), France (Lyon and Rouen) and Ireland (Cork). In Portugal, at Festivals such as Festival de Música de Guimarães, Festival de Almada, Festival Temps d’Image and stages such as CCB, Culturgest, D. Maria II National Theatre, Gulbenkian Foundation and several other concert halls spread along the country. The portuguese contemporary music receives a special attention from him, having played João Madureira, Vasco Mendonça or Jorge Salgueiro’s works in first audition. During 2009 João Vasco will present his first piano solo CD, “BeyondFado”, a compilation of twelve fados arranged for piano by Portuguese jazz and classical composers. João Vasco has a degree in Music by the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and a Master's Degree in Musical Arts by the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. (text by João Vasco)

João Vasco's website

My Space page

António Rosado

Pianist António Rosado began studying music when the was 3 years old, with his father, and graduated at the Lisbon National Conservatoire with the highest classifications. When he was 16 he went to study in Paris, where he had classes with Aldo Ciccolini, his tutor for several years, who said, about him: “António Rosado has something that cannot be taught or learned: the sense of the keyboard.” His virtuosity made him win international prizes such as the Alfredo Casella Competition and the Perosi International Academy’s G. Pella Prize. Those achievements helped establish a notorious career which throughout the years lead him to play many concerts and festivals all over the world, solo or with prestigious orchestras and conductors. He has been invited to play and record for TV and radio stations in many countries. His discography includes CDs dedicated to Enescu, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Mozart, Schumann and the Portuguese composers José Viana da Mota, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Luís de Freitas Branco and Armando José Fernandes. In 2008, António Rosado was decorated Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government.

Available discography.

António Rosado plays Fernando Lopes-Graça's Piano Sonata No. 2, 2nd movement.

Olga Prats

Born in 1938, pianist Olga Prats built a distinguished career for herself, in which Portuguese composers, traditional music and chamber music have always played major roles. She graduated at the National Conservatoire in Lisbon, under Abreu Motta, and followed further studies in Köln and Freiburg (namely with Gaspar Cassadó and Sándor Vegh), where she won the prize for Best Foreign Student, in 1959. On her return to Portugal, she studied with Helena Sá e Costa and in 1965 won the Luís Costa Prize for Best Spanish Music Performer. She attended the Estoril Summer Courses with Jean Françaix, Karl Engel, Paul Tortelier and Ludwig Streicher and has played with a great number of orchestras, such as the Pommersfelden Festival Chamber Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Buenos Aires Symphony Orchestra and Oporto Orchestra. Her wide repertoire ranges from Bach to Xenakis, including Schumann, Brahms e Stravinsky, and comprises Portuguese contemporary composers. She premiered and recorded several works by Fernando Lopes-Graça, Constança Capdeville, António Victorino d’Almeida, some of which were dedicated to her, and, among the new generations, Sérgio Azevedo and Sara Claro. She was the first Portuguese performer to play and record Astor Piazzolla’s music. She’s a founding member of Opus Ensemble, the prestigious and internationally acclaimed Portuguese ensemble. As a teacher, she tutored at the National Conservatoire and Lisbon Superior School of Music.

Discography