Bernardo Santos
Brief Bio
Portuguese pianist Bernardo Santos has been performing widely as a soloist and chamber musician, with performances ranging over more than twenty countries in venues such as the Casa da Música, Convento de São Francisco, Palau de la Música Catalana, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, National Concert Hall, Fairfield Halls in London, Sala São Paulo, Sala Cecília Meireles, Teatro Degollado in Mexico, among many others.
Several of his concerts were recorded by Portuguese classical radio Antena 2 and his recordings have been featured in Colombian radio Señal Clásica, Brazilian Radio MEC and TV Brasil and Classic FM. The Guardian mentions him as a virtuoso prodigy.
As an invited soloist with orchestra, Bernardo had the opportunity to play with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, Barcelona Metropolitan Orchestra, Podkarpacka Philharmonic Orchestra, Cali Philharmonic Orchestra, Vidin State Philarmonic Orchestra, West Mexico Symphony Orchestra, among others, having played under the baton of Alberto de Loza, Daniel Nery, Ernst Schelle, Hilo Carriel, Jorge Mario Uribe, Kira Omelchenko, Pedro Carneiro, Sílvio Viegas, and others.
As a chamber musician, Bernardo studied under guidance of Antonio Chagas Rosa, Eugene Asti and Martino Tirimo. Bernardo took part in chamber projects such as the CD “Curtas” of the composer Israel Costa Pereira. For Italian-Japanese label Da Vinci Publishing, Bernardo recorded the complete sonatas for violin and piano of Edvard Grieg, the piano quintets by Saint-Saëns and Dvorak and two piano works by Piazzolla, Infante and Ravel. For MPMP label, Bernardo recorded piano works by Ruy Coelho.
Bernardo complements his artistic career with research on Portuguese composers, being responsible for the c ritical edition and publishing of works by Berta Alves de Sousa and Frederico de Freitas and Ruy Coelho. Bernardo gave masterclasses in several 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, Ljubljana Academy of Music, Conservatori del Liceu and from the University of Aveiro, 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 and Artistic Director of the “Ciclos Lua Nova” concert series, hosted by Fundação Dionísio Pinheiro e Alice Cardoso Pinheiro, in Águeda, Portugal.