Susana Santos Silva

Susana Santos Silva was born in Porto in the year of 1979. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Jazz/Trumpet ‘2008 from the College of Music and Performing Arts in Porto. She also holds a Graduate Diploma in Trumpet´2004 from the same school, finishing the course at the Stlaatliche Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe in Reinhold Friedrich´s Class, where she also had lessons with Prof. Edward Tarr, Klaus Schuwerk and Klaus Braker. She is a member of the European Movement Jazz Orchestra, with whom she toured in Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium and Portugal, Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, LAMA Trio, leads her own Quintet, freelances and records with other projects in different musical styles.She participated on Master Classes and Seminars with names such as John Aigi Hurn, Charles Buttler, Eric Aubier, Pierre Thibeau, Pasi Pirinen, Philip Smith, Pierre Dutot, Adolph Herseth, Robert Astre. She played with several orchestras such as Orquestra Académica do Porto, Sinfonieta do Porto, Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Filarmonia das Beiras, Remix e Orquestra de Jovens da Casa da Musica. She participated in some Workshops with Jon Faddis, Cecil Bridgewater, Alex Sipiagin, Orrin Evans, Richie Beirach, Greg Osby, Jason Lindner, Mark Turner, Chris Cheek, Ohad Talmor, Dan Weiss, and others. As part of Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, she records Portology featuring Lee Konitz and OJM Invites Chris Cheek, and plays with Mark Turner, Rich Perry, John Riley, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Bob Berg, Rick Margitza, Perico Sambeat, Conrad Herwig, Ingrid Jensen, Joshua Redman, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dan Weiss, Gerald Clever, John Hollenbeck, Theo Bleckman, Jordi Rossi, Eric Vloeimans among others. The orchestra has been playing on the jazz festivals all over Portugal and in Milano, Brussels and New York. With Carlos Azevedo Ensemble records Lenda. She is now attending a Master in Jazz Performance in Codarts, Rotterdam, where she works with Eric Vloeimans, Jarmo Hoogendijk and Wim Both.

(text by Susana Santos Silva)

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Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos

Created in 1999, the Orquestra de Jazz de Matosinhos is one of the most dynamic orchestras in the Portuguese jazz panorama. Directed by Carlos Azevedo and Pedro Guedes, the orchestra has sought to create its own repertoire as well as organize specific projects with guest performances by soloists, maestros and composers of international renown Through the diversity and imagination involved in the programs presented, the regular release of international recordings and its continuous growth, OJM has managed to reach a level where it is truly a national jazz orchestra. After almost ten years in action a number of events stand out, namely the Porto 2001 closing ceremony, the recreation of Sketches of Spain with the Remix Ensemble, the presentation of Carla Bley’s music, recording the CD Portology with Lee Konitz for the North American label Omnitone, the concerts with Lee Konitz, the CD OJM invites Chris Cheek for Fresh Sound New Talent, the concert with John Hollenbeck, the concert with Dee Dee Bridgewater, the concert in which OJM performed with the Porto National Orchestra, the concert with Kurt Rosenwinkel and also the recent concert with Joshua Redman and Chris Cheek at the inauguration of the Cine-Teatro Constantino Nery in Matosinhos. And OJM has crossed borders, performing in Brussels, Milan and in New York, at the Carnegie Hall, during the JVC Jazz Festival. (text by OJM)

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Paulo Jorge Ferreira

Accordionist Paulo Jorge Ferreira (b. Lisbon, 1966) began his musical studies at the age of five with professor José António Sousa. He participated in national and international contests, achieving distinguished classifications. Along his musical learning he attended seminaries directed by some of the most prestigious contemporary accordionists. He studied at Matono Musical Institute and finished his superior studies in the Castelo Branco Superior School of Applied Arts. He has performed concerts both national and internationally, namely in France, Mexico, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Macau, Spain and Hungary, and chamber music concerts, playing with highly honoured musicians such as the pianist Maria João Pires and António Victorino d’Almeida, among others. He has been invited as a guest musician by symphony and chamber orchestras, for example, Beijin Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Oporto National Orchestra, Lisbon Sinfonietta, Remix Ensemble, and as a solist with Esart Ensemble and Remix Ensemble working along with famous international conductors, such as Stefan Asbury, Lawrence Foster, Peter Rundel, Martin André, Emilio Pomarico. He also composes with Pedro Santos an accordion duo (Duo Damian), with Pedro Vasconcelos one of accordion and piano (Ars Duo), with Carlos Alves one of accordion and clarinet (Artclac), and a quintet with a string quartet. Along his musical carrier he has been participating in several discographic recordings, radio and tv programs. He’s also developed the activity of composer, writing works for solo instruments, chamber music and orchestra. Recently one of his compositions for solo accordion was chosen as a compulsory piece in an accordion contest in the Basque Country. He lectures in the Applied Arts Superior School in Castelo Branco and in several conservatoires. He often participates as a jury member in international accordion competitions. In 2004, it was published a solo cd, "Percursos". (adapted from text by Paulo Jorge Ferreira).

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Martin André

British conductor Martin André went to the Yehudi Menuhin School where he studied the piano. At Cambridge University he combined playing the piano with conducting. Now as a conductor he divides his time equally between the opera house and the concert platform. Concert appearances in the UK have included the Philharmonia, BBC Concert Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and Royal Scottish National Orchestra, among others. Abroad he works regularly with orchestras in countries such as Holland, Norway, Israel, Australia and, in Portugal, Oporto National Orchestra and Remix Contemporary Ensemble. He made his opera debut conducting for Welsh National Opera, with whom he spent many seasons as a resident conductor. During this time he worked on a wide variety of operas, particularly 19th century Italian repertoire. He continues to work across a broad range of composers, although is particularly recognised for his interpretations of Verdi, Mozart and Janáček. He has the rare distinction of being the only conductor to have performed for all the major British opera companies. Internationally he has made numerous appearances in the opera houses of Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Holland, Israel, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa and the USA. In Portugal he performed the opening concert of Casa da Música in 2005 and in 2006 he created the Youth Orchestra of Portugal, which proved to be such a success and was renamed Momentum Perpetuum. Every year since then it has played the new year’s concert in Casa da Música and in July 2008 it has toured in Italy. He also conducted the Portuguese National Symphony Orchestra, playing works by Luís Tinoco, António Pinho Vargas and Joly Braga Santos on the opening concert of the “Música Portuguesa Hoje” festival in Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon. (adapted from text in Martin André’s website)

Discography

Daniel Moreira

Born in Porto, 1983, composer Daniel Moreira began his music studies in 1994. At the Porto Music Conservatory, he studied guitar with Artur Caldeira and composition with João-Heitor Rigaud. In 2006 he graduated from Faculdade de Economia do Porto with a B.A. in Economics, for which he was awarded the Banco de Portugal Prize for best student of Economics in 2006. He studies at Escola Superior de Música e das Artes do Espectáculo – ESMAE, Porto - since 2006, where he has studied composition with Dimitris Andrikopoulos and Fernando Lapa, and electronic music with Carlos Guedes. Also at ESMAE, he received lessons from Klaas de Vries, Magnus Lindberg and Jonathan Harvey (these last two in cooperation with Casa da Música). He is currently attending the Master´s Degree in Composition and Music Theory. In 2007, two of his pieces have been selected for reading sessions at Casa da Música: Magma, for an ensemble of 15 instrumentalists (Remix Ensemble, conductor: Rolf Gupta) and a preliminary version of the String Quartet (Diotima Quartet). He has received an award at Gian Battista Viotti International Music Competition 2007 in Vercelli, Italy (3rd prize for Noctis Lumina, for viola solo) and an Honorable Mention at Póvoa de Varzim Internacional Composition Competition 2008 (O Escuro Silêncio da Chuva, for female voice and ensemble). In 2009, he is young composer-in-residence at Casa da Música. Several works will be commissioned, two of which for the resident ensembles (Oporto National Orchestra, Remix Ensemble). He is a chorister at Coral de Letras da Universidade do Porto since 2004. (adapted from text by Daniel Moreira)

Drumming

Drumming - Percussion group was founded in Oporto in 1999. The group has been synthesizing the evolution of erudite percussion in Portugal and in western culture. It has rapidly earned the public and the critic's sympathy and today it is a reference in the Portuguese musical life, performing in the main concert halls of Portugal: Centro Cultural de Belém, Gulbenkian Foundation, Culturgest, Teatro Camões, Teatro Rivoli, Teatro Nacional de S. João, Fundação de Serralves, etc., as well as in Spain, Belgian, France, Germany, Brazil, etc. Resident group for musical programming in Porto 2001 - European Cultural Capital, it has contributed to promote great contemporary plays, also creating its own repertoire, encouraging dozens of national and international composers to write plays for the group, exploring the most diversified, various and imaginative forms and ways of expressing percussion, earning progressively several publics in that area, which has never been heard before. Under the direction of Miquel Bernat, percussionist and pedagogue of international prestige, funding member of Ictus Ensemble from Brussels and collaborator of the Contemporary Dancing Company Rosas from Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Drumming distinguishes itself for its singular programming, which sums up the experiences of the director's professional life, with the variety, diversity of styles and formation of its members. Drumming explores musical areas such as: contemporary music, rock-jazz-world Music, music for theatre scenes, opera and ballet dance. The group's activity goes also through collaboration with other groupings like the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Oporto National Orchestra, Remix Ensemble, Quarteto Montagnana and solo players like the singer Maria João or the violoncellist Ivan Moniguetti, among others. Drumming - percussion group tries to maintain a stylish and thematic coherency, going through sound innovation and the poetics of the musical show as a total and unique scenic moment. (text by Drumming)

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Sérgio Azevedo

Photo: Carlos Mateus de Lima

Composer Sérgio Azevedo was born in Coimbra in 1968. He studied composition at the Academia de Amadores de Música (Lisbon) with composer Fernando Lopes-Graça and finished his studies of composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, with Christopher Bochmann (a disciple of Nadia Boulanger) and Constança Capdeville. He followed several seminars at IRCAM and other institutions and worked in short periods with composers like Emmanuel Nunes (at the Gulbenkian Foundation), Tristan Murail, Phillipe Manoury, Jorge Peixinho, Louis Andriessen and Simon Bainbridge. He won several prizes of composition, in Portugal and abroad (like the United Nations Prize), and his works have been played and commissioned regularly in several countries (Spain, France, UK, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Brazil, Canada, USA, etc) by prestigious ensembles, soloists and conductors (Luca Pfaff, Pascal Roffé, Jürgen Bruns, Nikolai Lalov, Bruno Belthoise, Artur Pizarro, António Rosado, Miguel Borges Coelho, Anne Kaasa, Jose Ramon Encinar, Galliard Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Kammersymphonie Berlin, etc), some of them being available in commercial CDs. He works frequently with schools and students, composing a great deal of didactic pieces, ranging from piano solo to small ensembles and school orchestras. He’s also a prolific writer on music, with two books published, Inventing Sounds (Caminho 1999) and Olga Prats - Um Piano Singular (Bizâncio 2007) and several articles. He also contributes to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and works for other prestigious magazines and CD labels. In 1993 he was appointed teacher of composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. He was also author of broadcastings at RDP - Antena 2 since 1993 and member of the CESEM, Center for Aesthetic and Music Studies between 1993 and 2007. In 2007 he began his doctorate degree at Universidade do Minho with Elisa Lessa and Christopher Bochmann. His music is published by AVA - Editions (www.editions-ava.com). (adapted from text by Sérgio Azevedo)

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Other pages:

http://www.classical-composers.org/comp/azevedo
http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/azevedos.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9rgio_Azevedo

Remix Ensemble

Remix Ensemble is Casa da Música's contemporary music group. Since its debut in 2000, it has already performed the world premières of sixty new works and a considerable range of contemporary music, covering all currents of style and idiom. In addition to its work on the concert platform, the group has made incursions into opera and music theatre, music accompanying films, dance and jazz. It has regularly invited featured composers to undertake workshops alongside performances of their works, including Emmanuel Nunes, Heiner Goebbels, James Dillon, Magnus Lindberg, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Harrison Birtwistle, Wolfgang Mitterer and Karin Rehnqvist. To date, the Remix Ensemble has been conducted by Stefan Asbury, Ilan Volkov, Kasper de Roo, Pierre-André Valade, Rolf Gupta, Jonathan Stockhammer, Jurjen Hempel, Matthias Pintscher, Franck Ollu, Reinbert de Leeuw, Diego Masson, Paul Hillier and Emilio Pomàrico, amongst others conductors. At international level, the Remix Ensemble performed in Paris (IRCAM, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and L'Odeon), Strasbourg (Musica), Brussels (Ars Musica), Huddersfield, Rotterdam, Madrid, Barcelona, Valence, Budapest, Orleans, Bourges, Reims, Norrköping and Vienna. The first double CD of music by the Remix Ensemble was released in 2004, containing live and studio recordings of works by Pauset, Azguime, Côrte-Real, Peixinho, Dillon, Staud and Nunes. New CDs with music by Emmanuel Nunes (Numérica), Bernhard Lang (Villa Concordia), Pinho Vargas (Numérica) and Wolfgang Mitterer (Casa da Música) are also available. In 2007/2008, Remix Ensemble performed several world premieres, including the first opera by Emmanuel Nunes and works by Miguel Azguime (with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation), António Chagas-Rosa (with the Klangforum Wien), Johannes Maria Staud, Rebecca Saunders, David Horn, Georg Friedrich Haas, Vykintas Baltakas, Georges Aperghis, Jon Balke, Wolfgang Mitterer and Mauricio Sotelo. The Remix Ensemble is scheduled to play concerts at various international festivals during 2009: Madrid, Witten, Brussels, Huddersfield and Amsterdam. Peter Rundel is the Remix Ensemble's Chief Conductor. (text from Remix Ensemble's page at Casa da Música's website)