Portuguese conductor, composer, and clarinetist, Luís Carvalho is one of the most versatile musicians of his generation. Having performed numerous concerts and recitals around the World, often premieres his own pieces and others by leading Portuguese and foreign contemporary composers, some of which have been specifically dedicated to him.
Carvalho holds a PhD in Music from the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and is the recipient of many accolades. These include prizewinning at the Estoril Interpretation Competition (2001 – as clarinettist), the 4th Póvoa de Varzim International Composition Competition, for his orchestral work Metamorphoses… hommage à M. C. Escher (2009) and the 1st Francisco Martins Composition Competition (Coimbra/2017) for Mosaico – also for orchestra. Furthermore, he was a nominee for the national Authors Prize 2012 from the Portuguese Authors Society (SPA), for another of his orchestral works – Nise Lacrimosa. Carvalho also came top winner at the Audition for Young Conductors held by the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra in 2010 and was a finalist at the Hans von Bülow International Conducting Competition (2021). In 2013, Audience regional newspaper awarded him the Prestige Trophy for his career devoted to music.
As a conductor, Carvalho appears regularly with most of Portugal’s leading orchestras and abroad his concerts took him to Russia, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Finland. He is founder and artistic/music director of Camerata Nov’Arte, an ensemble based in Porto that counts already two international tours to Brazil (ES – Espírito Santo) in 2013 and to Slovakia in 2019. Carvalho performed in many important festivals such as, in Portugal, the Estoril, Alcobaça (Cistermúsica), Póvoa de Varzim, Espinho, Algarve, Paços de Brandão, Guimarães, Autumn Festival (Aveiro), Marvão, CCB Music Days (Lisbon), RDP/Antena 2 PJM Festival (Portuguese Broadcasting Corporation), while abroad he appeared at the Macao Festival, Domingos Martins Winter Festival (Brazil), ClarinetFest–Madrid (Spain), Festival Musica (Strasbourg/France) and Musique en Guyenne (Monflanquin/France).Carvalho’s musical partnerships include such renowned soloists as Pedro Burmester and João Bettencourt da Câmara (piano), José Pereira and Tamila Kharambura (violin), Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot, Alexandre Delgado and Pedro Meireles (viola), Marco Pereira (cello), Radovan Vlatkovic and Paulo Guerreiro (horn), Alain Damiens, Justo Sanz, Josep Fuster and Arno Piters (clarinet), Pedro Carneiro (percussion), Henrique Portovedo (saxophone), Rui Lopes (bassoon), and Elsa Saque, Carlos Guilherme, Mário Alves, Raquel Camarinha, Dora Rodrigues, Sara Braga Simões, Maria Luís Freitas, Cristiana Oliveira and Ana Paula Russo (voice), having furthermore participated in the international festivals of Estoril, Alcobaça (Cistermúsica), Póvoa de Varzim, Espinho, Algarve, Paços de Brandão, Guimarães, Autumn Festival (Aveiro), CCB Music Days (Lisbon), RDP/Antena 2 Young Musicians Festival, and abroad at the Macao Festival, the Domingos Martins Winter Festival (Brazil), the ClarinetFest–Madrid (Espanha) and Musique en Guyenne (Monflanquin/França).
Carvalho’s repertoire is vast and eclectic, spanning from the baroque to contemporaneity, and includes several World premieres. On the scenic/operatic field, his experience includes the premiere of Portuguese operas Tale of the Foundation of the City of Coimbra, by Manuel de Faria (Coimbra-2004), and Repetition of the End of the World – Royal Opera (Porto-2019), this a collaborative opera between four composers from Porto (Telmo Marques, Eugénio Amorim, Carlos Azevedo e Dimitris Andrikopoulos). Furthermore, he led representations of La voix humaine (Poulenc), Il secreto de Susanna (Wolf-Ferrari), Pierrot Lunaire (Schoenberg) and Histoire du Soldat (Stravinsky).
A recognized composer, Carvalho’s works received performances in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Venezuela and Brazil. His catalogue, mainly published by AvA-editions (Portugal), Universal Edition (Austria) and Molenaar (Holland), includes works for orchestra, band, chamber music, solos and many arrangements, orchestrations and revisions, most of which result from commissions by various leading institutions and soloists. Within the scope of his doctoral research, Carvalho conceived a «reinvention of the draft for large ensemble» for Gustav Mahler’s last and unfinished Symphony No.10 in F# major, which he himself premiered, conducting Camerata Nov’Arte in June/2014.
Carvalho features in nearly two dozen CD’s, either as a clarinetist, conductor or composer and in labels such as NUMÉRICA, CASA DA MÚSICA, AFINAUDIO, PUBLIC-ART, and MOLENAAR.
He is a faculty at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and researcher at INET-md.
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