Pedro Sousa Silva studied the recorder with Pedro Couto Soares at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (1992-1996), Reine Marie Verhagen at Utrecht's Conservatorium (1994) and Pedro Memesldorff at Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano (1996-2000). Masterclasses with Peter Holtslag, Peter van Heyghen, Ricardo Kanji, Bart Spanhove and Kees Boeke among many others.

 

Post graduation in Historical Musicology at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (1999-2000) and PhD in Music at Universidade de Aveiro with a thesis that discusses the interaction between practice and theory in the performance of renaissance polyphony.

As a recorder player he has been often invited to perform in countless venues in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Brazil, having worked with directors such as Enrico Onofri, Lawrence Cummings, Jill Feldman or Amandine Beyer.

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More recently, his musical activity is focused on the ensemble that he directs: the recorder consort A Imagem da Melancolia (with whom he recorded ‘Arte da Usurpação’ and ‘The Bad Tempered Consort’), and Arte Minima, a vocal/instrumental ensemble devoted to Portuguese music from the 16th and 17th centuries.

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Since 1992 he has devoted part of his time to the teaching of the recorder and early music. Presently he is Adjunct Professor at Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo (Porto), where he teaches the recorder, chamber music and historically informed performance, co-directs the baroque orchestra and the renaissance ensemble, and where directed the Early Music Department and the Master in Performance. He is often welcomed by international higher education institutions (such as Conservatorio Superior de Música de Vigo, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Joseph Haydn Konservatorium, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, Conservatorio di Musica di Cosenza, Norges Musikkhøgskole, Akademie für Alte Musik Bremen, Universidade Estadual Paulista) to give lectures and masterclasses.

 

As a researcher and performer, Pedro is currently engaged in the transcription and performance of the immense unpublished repertoire from the Renaissance in Portuguese sources and coordinates a research project about the use of the canon as learning tool for polyphony.