Music

In my little spare time, I am a semi-professional musician. I decided long ago not to try to make a living out of it, but it still takes up a significant amount of my time. As such, I decided it should take up a significant amount of my web page.

Education

Disregarding the mandatory music classes in school (which might actually be unfair, since it was my music teacher from those days who actually suggested I study music seriously), I began studying music in October 1991 when I enrolled at the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon. I studied there for eight years, and in September 1999 I finished the course in Gregorian Chant (which also includes all standard subjects like Music Theory, History of Music, Composition and Acoustics, and some non-standard ones such as Latin, Gregorian Chant and Modality Theory. And, of course, piano and eight years of Choir practice).

In September 1997 I started having singing lessons first in Lisbon, with Elsa Cortez, and between January 2002 and June 2004 with Nicoline Krassenburg (I changed because, unfortunately, living in Nijmegen and having singing lessons in Lisbon was a bit unpractical), then from November 2004 until July 2005 again with Elsa Cortez. After a short intermission, I resumed classes, then worked with João Lourenço between November 2006 and July 2011. In the meantime, I took summer courses with Isabel Alcobia and Claire Vangelisti, as well as Alexander Technique classes with the fabulous Isobel Anderson.

Concerts and auditions

Apart from regularly singing small solos in concerts with choirs since late 1998, my first real solo experience was singing the tenor part (the uncle) in two performances of the modern piece "Marieken van Nieumeghen" by Jiri Teml. Fortunately there is no evidence that those concerts ever happened.

After seeing the light and becoming a baritone, in August 2008 I made my debut in opera, singing Betto in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (from Il Trittico). Since then, I have sung Papageno (in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, 2010) and Aeneas (in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, 2011), all in the summer opera course at the University of Aveiro. Besides these, I have sung in small concerts and auditions.

Singing Activity
a.k.a. My Choirs

Coro do Instituto Gregoriano de Lisboa (Nov/1991 till Jul/1999)
Coro de Câmara do Instituto Gregoriano de Lisboa (Sep/1992 till Jul/1993 and Jan/1998 till Jul/1999)

These were the choirs at the school were I studied music. The chamber choir was extinguished and ressurrected a few years later, and it was where I had the priviledge of working first with Christopher Bochmann and later with Vasco Pearce de Azevedo, whose advice and methods I still follow to this day.

Coral Lisboa Cantat (Mar/1995 till Jun/1997)

On March 12, 1995 I joined Coral Lisboa Cantat, an amateur choir in Lisbon where I finally realized one of the dreams from my late childhood: singing in a real choir (and not just the school choir). Our pathes crossed for just over two years, and I still recall those days with much pleasure. Although the conductor is still the same, the choir I sang with is hardly recognizable anymore. From a small group of about 30 people (in the really crowded days) it grew to one of the largest and more successful amateur groups in Lisbon.

Coro Ricercare (Set/1997 till Jul/2001)

On September 8, 1997 I moved to Coro Ricercare, at the time starting to emerge as one of the most promising musical groups in the area. The choir (which unfortunately no longer has a web page) is part of an association together with the Orquestra Sinfonietta de Lisboa, and both have as goal to promote the work of contemporary portuguese composers. In this spirit, we spent a lot of time rehearsing, performing and even recording music by composers such as Eurico Carrapatoso, Carlos Marecos, Sérgio Azevedo and Nuno Corte-Real (to name just a few).

At the same time, the choir also worked on the more conventional repertoire, and with them I sung works like Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem, Sousa Carvalho's Te Deum (in a first modern performance), J.S. Bach's Mass in G and several smaller) works by Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith and Brahms (these are the ones that crossed my mind as I was writing this).

During my days there, the choir travelled twice to neighboring Spain for contests, to Seville in 1998 (where we won a 2nd prize in a small regional contest where no 1st place was awarded) and to Madrid a year later, winning 1st prize in what I think was a relatively important competition in Spain. Felt good.

I consider myself very lucky to have lived those years in this choir. Much of what I have achieved as a musician I owe to the work I did during those years with conductor Paulo Lourenço. Having to leave the choir was my biggest objection to moving to the Netherlands; my last performance with them was on July 6, 2001.

Coro da Universidade de Lisboa (Oct/1998 till Jun/2001)

Another almost mandatory experience for every amateur singer around 20 years of age is to sing with the Choir of the University of Lisbon. I did that from mid-October 1998 until I graduated from University on June 18th, 2001.

Besides the musical experience you gain just from the concert load of around thirty concerts a year, the choir also performed one large choral work each year (that was Orff's Catulli Carmina in 1999 and Dvorak's Stabat Mater in 2000) and travelled around the country a LOT. But most of all it was a great way to spend time, musical considerations aside. Nice when you're a college student with a lot of free time.

Vocaal Ensemble PANiek (Nov/2001 till Sep/2004)

On November 14, 2001 I had my first choir rehearsal in the Netherlands, having been allowed on a trial basis to sing with Vocaal Ensemble PANiek. This is a very interesting small choir with no conductor (although occasionally we got coached by the amazing Hans van den Hombergh. I ended up staying with them for almost three years, and again the most difficult part about coming back to Portugal was leaving PANiek. The concept of musical experience gained a new meaning during those three years, and changed for life (I think!) my concepts of what I want to achieve in music. 

In October 2003 Vocaal Ensemble PANiek came on tournée to Lisbon, having sung in Benfica church (here's a (HUGE) picture), in the Faculty of Science of the University of Lisbon and in the Bar-Terraço of the Belém Cultural Center.

For posterity there is the CD with Gesualdo's Responsoria for Maundy Thursday, recorded in early 2003.

Coro Gulbenkian (Jan/2005 till Sep/2008)

After moving back to Lisbon I yearned for the opportunity of performing music at the level I had been doing in the Netherlands. Fortunately, in November 2004 there were auditions for tenors (just my luck) for the Gulbenkian Choir, which is one of the two major professional choirs in Portugal. My first rehearsal was on January 10, 2005, and in my first year there I sang in full anonimity on 13 different occasions. Unfortunately nothing lasts for ever, and for personal and professional reasons I had to leave the choir temporarily from January 2008, and effectively from September.

Coro Regina Coeli (Jun/2006 till July 2010)

In June 2006 I again started singing regularly with an amateur choir, this time Coro Regina Coeli (a well-established choir, which celebrated its 40th anniversary just after my joining them). In one of those curious twists of fate, since January 2007 this choir became conducted by Paulo Lourenço, with whom I used to work in Coro Ricercare, so I ended up back where I started. For several reasons I left the choir in July 2010 to take on other musical projects.

Coro Capela Nova (Jan/2012 till December 2013)

At the end of 2011 I was challenged to join Coro Capela Nova, a small choir with an interesting musical project described in its home page. Although it is formally an amateur choir, the musical level is quite high, the work challenging and the result quite interesting. Due to my moving abroad, I had to leave the choir at the end of 2013, but we still collaborate on occasion.

Filharmonisk kor (Odense) (Feb/2014 till Feb/2018)

Upon moving to Denmark, I joined the now extinct local filharmonic choir, which performed regularly with the local orchestra. This choir is responsible for my having (finally) learned most of Haendel's Messias and parts I—III of Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium by heart.

Filharmonisk kor (Sønderjylland) (since Jun/2015)

Similar to the previous, this filharmonic choir performs regularly with the Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester in concerts in the region of Southern Jutland.

Det Fynske Kammerkor (since Jan/2016)

My main choir these days is the Fionan Chamber Choir, which performs regularly around Denmark and (occasionally) abroad. Its repertoire is quite different from the music performed by Portugues chois, with a lot of focus on Danish and Scandinavian composers.

Other Choirs & Stuff

These are the main choirs where I have been. Besides these there were a huge amount of others (as many as six at a time; I don't advise anyone to try more than three, unless they want to go crazy — I almost did). Although some of those were so bad I don't even want to remember them, here is a complete (?) list of those I actually sang in concert with.

In some choirs I also held directive positions, namely in Coral Lisboa Cantat (from Jul/1996 till Jun/1997), Associação Musical Ricercare (treasurer from Jul/1998 till Jul/2000) and Coro da Universidade de Lisboa (treasurer from Jul/1999 till Jun/2001).