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BIOGRAPHY

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Bernardo Santos

Portugal

Portuguese pianist Bernardo Santos has been performing widely in recital, with orchestra and as a chamber musician, with performances ranging over 20 countries in venues such as the Casa da Música and Convento de São Francisco in Portugal, Palau de la Musica Catalana and Teatro Liceo in Spain, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, National Concert Hall in Dublin, Fairfield Halls in London, Sala São Paulo, Sala Cecília Meireles in Brazil, Teatro Degollado in Mexico, among many others, being regularly invited to festivals all over Europe, South America and Asia.

BIOGRAPHY

As an invited soloist with orchestra, Bernardo had the opportunity to play with the Portuguese Philharmonic Orchestra, Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Minas Gerais Symphony Orchestra, Barcelona Metropolitan Orchestra, Filharmonia Podkarpacka Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra, Cali Philharmonic Orchestra, Vidin State Philarmonic Orchestra, Orquestra Clássica do Centro, among others. He has played under the baton of conductors such as Carlos Vieu, Charles Gambetta, Ernst Schelle, Jorge Mario Uribe, Kira Omelchenko, Ligia Amadio, Osvaldo Ferreira, Rui Miguel Marques, Sergio Alapont, Silvio Viegas, among others.

As a chamber musician, Bernardo studied under guidance of Antonio Chagas Rosa, Eugene Asti and Martino Tirimo. Bernardo frequently collaborates with other artists such as Artur Pizarro, Pascal Rogé and Deniz Arman Gelenbe. For Japanese label Da Vinci Publishing, Bernardo recorded the violin and piano sonatas by Edvard Grieg alongside David Lloyd, piano quintets by Saint-Saëns and Dvorak with Belem Quartet and works for two pianos by Piazzolla, Infante and Ravel with Martim Almeida. For MPMP label, Bernardo recorded piano works by Portuguese composer Ruy Coelho.

Bernardo complements his artistic career with research on Portuguese composers Berta Alves de Sousa and Frederico de Freitas, being responsible for the critical edition and publishing of works by both composers. The main object of research now incides on the music for piano by Portuguese composer Ruy Coelho. Bernardo gave masterclasses in several festivals, universities and music schools in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico and Vietnam.

Bernardo Santos is currently taking part of the Doctoral Programme in Music Performance (PhD) at the University of Aveiro, being a research fellow at INET-md. Bernardo graduated from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, Ljubljana Academy of Music, Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona and from the University of Aveiro (Aveiro City Prize), having studied with Dubravka Tomsic, Deniz Gelenbe, Josep Colom, Álvaro Teixeira Lopes and Klara Dolynay.

Bernardo Santos is the president of the World Piano Teachers Association (WPTA) Portugal, co-founder and co-director of Festival Internacional de Piano y Orquesta de Guadalajara (FIPOG) in Mexico and Artistic Director of the “Ciclos Lua Nova” concert series, hosted by Fundação Dionísio Pinheiro e Alice Cardoso Pinheiro, in Águeda, Portugal.