Composers

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Details as performer
 Nuno Côrte-Real was born in Lisbon in November 1971. He studied guitar, music theory, piano and composition with, among others, Piñero Nagy, Helena Pimentel, Carlos Fernandes and Fernando Eldoro. In 1995 he finished the Superior Composition course in the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa studying with Christopher Bochmann, António Pinho Vargas, Eurico Carrapatoso, Carlos Caires and António de Sousa Dias (Electronic Music). In the fall of 1994 he had a student grant of the ERASMUS Exchange Program, studying Composition and piano in the Utrecht Conservatory (Holland) with Tom Lambij and Henck Heckel. In 2000 Nuno Côrte-Real was awarded in the Competition of Electronic Music “Musica Viva”, in Lisbon, with his 1995 piece "Noa-Noa, homenagem a Gauguin", and in Italy, in the Egidio Carella Competition in Val Tidone, with the piece "Le Vin" (1997). He had a scholarship, between 1999 and 2001, by the Centro Nacional de Cultura. In October 2001 he concluded the composition course in the Rotterdam Conservatory, where he studied with Klaas de Vries, Peter Jan Wagemans and Rene Uijlenhoet (Electronic Music). He has conducted many of his pieces with ensembles and chamber orchestras from Utrecht and Rotterdam conservatories, and in Portugal with the Darcos Ensemble, his own organisation of a contemporary professional ensemble. Since 2002 he continued studying with Jean Marc Bourfin at the Academia Superior de Orquestra, Lisbon, where he regularly conducts the Academic Symphony Orchestra. Nuno Côrte-Real has been regularly presenting his works in Portugal, in the Netherlands, in England, in Spain, in Iceland and in Hungary, some of them commissioned by different institutions and performers. Amongst his significant premières are "7 Dances to the death of the harpist" in the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, "Pequenas músicas de mar"in the Purcell Room in London, "Concerto Vedras" at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in New York, "Novíssimo Cancioneiro" at the Siglufirdi Festival in Rejkiavik and "Andarilhos - música de bailado" at Casa da Música in Oporto. The ensembles that have performed his music include the Remix Ensemble, Royal Scottish Academy Brass, Gulbenkian Choir, the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon, North Orchestra, Orchestrutopica, and solists and conductors such as Lawrence Renes, Julia Jones, Stefan Asbury, Ilan Volkov, Kaasper de Roo, Cristoph Konig, David Alan Miller, Paul Crossley, John Wallace, Mats Lidström, Rui Pinheiro and Cesário Costa. Recordings of his music include Portuguese traditional songs on the Portugal Som and Numérica labels, Pequenas Músicas de Mar on Deux-Elles, the ballet Andarilhos on Numérica in coproduction with the Casa da Música, and Largo Intimíssimo on the Austrian label Classic Concert Records. In 2011, Nuno Côrte-Real released the CD VOLUPIA, the first monographic disc of his chamber music. In the field of opera and theatre, Côrte-Real has worked with Michael Hampe, André Teodósio, Maria Emília Correia, Paulo Matos, Margarida Bettencourt and others. In June and September 2007 his chamber operas A Montanha and O Rapaz de Bronze were given, with great success, at the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Casa da Música, respectively. In March 2011 the opera Banksters was premièred at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, to a libretto by Vasco Graça Moura and with staging by João Botelho, a production which was uniquely successful in the recent history of Portuguese contemporary music. As a conductor, Nuno Côrte-Real has conducted the Galician Royal Philarmonic and Excelentia Fundation Orchestra (Spain), Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, Algarve Orchestra, Orchestra of the North, the I Maestri Symphony Orchestra (UK), the Metropolitan Academic Orchestra (Portugal), Beiras Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestrutopica (Portugal), the Ensemble Darcos and the Camerata du Rhône (France). In June 2015 made is debut at the symphonic hall of Auditorio Nacional de Madrid, Spain. He is the founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Darcos, a chamber group dedicated to the performance of his own music and that of the great European repertoire, and the artistic director of Temporada Darcos, a series of symphonic and chamber concerts which take place at Torres Vedras and Lisbon. He has collaborated with several international music festivals, among others, Festival de Sintra and Póvoa de Varzim, and conducted soloists such as Artur Pizarro, Nicola Ulivieri, Ana Quintans, Alexey Sychev, Domenico Codispoti, Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, Adriano Jordão, Giulio Plotino, Luís Rodrigues, Filipe Quaresma and Dora Rodrigues, among others. In 2003, he was awarded with the medal of Cultural Merit distinction of Torres Vedras City Hall. In Focus (March 2011)