Ângela Lopes

Ângela Graça da Silva Lopes was born in Ovar. In 1995 she completed a piano course at the Academy of Music of Santa Maria da Feira. In 1994 she entered the Superior School of Music and Performance Arts (Escola Superior de Música e das Artes do Espectáculo – ESMAE) of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (IPP) where she completed, in 1997, the Baccalaureate in Composition, in the class of Cândido Lima. The same year Ângela Lopes passed, with approval, the access tests for the degree in Specialized Superior Studies [Curso de Estudos Superiores Especializados (CESE)]. She concluded the degree and the DESE with distinction in 2000. During her academic studies Ângela Lopes worked with Álvaro Salazar and Virgílio Melo (electroacoustic music) and Filipe Pires (orchestration). In 2004 she began her PhD at the University of Aveiro, under the orientation of João Pedro Oliveira and co-orientation of Mario Mary (from the Paris University VII). She participated in several projects, some of which were focused on electroacoustic music, such as collaboration in technical assistance and sound projection, since 2000, with the New Music Group (Grupo Música Nova) directed by Cândido Lima. Between 2000 and 2001 she worked as a member of the MC47 group – a mixed ensemble of the ESMAE directed by Virgílio Melo. In 2000 and 2001 she participated in the Música Viva Festival, where her works, "Cantique", "Harmonium" (electroacoustic) and "Canção de Izis" (baritone and electronics), were presented. At this same Festival she also collaborated in the sound projection of "Circuitus" by Virgílio Melo (2000) and worked in the sound programming and projection of Cândido Lima's work, "Gestos-Circus-Circulus" (2001). In 2003 Ângela Lopes wrote the piece "Coor" (for bass clarinet and electronics) commissioned by the Música Viva Festival. She has worked on the technical electroacoustic realization of several Cândido Lima's pieces, such as "Quadros cinéticos", "ETRAS" or "Músicas de Villaiana – Coros Oceânicos". Ângela Lopes has composed pieces for several formations, presented in Portugal and abroad. Her works have been performed by several recognizable musicians, such as Pedro Couto Soares and Jorge Salgado (flute), Nuno Pinto and Luís Carvalho (clarinet and bass clarinet), Vítor Pinho and Sofia Lourenço (piano), Margarida Magalhães (soprano), João Merino (baritone), Suzanna Lidegran (violin), Vicente Choaquim and Jed Barahal (cello), António Carrilho, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Juvenile Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 2003, Ângela Lopes collaborated with the Pé de Vento Theatre on the music for the play "O poço" by Manuel António Pina. The spectacle was presented in 2008 at the Vilarinha Theatre during the World-Wide Water Day. As a commission of the Miso Music Portugal she composed "A Menina dos Olhos de Chuva" (based on Anne Lauricella's story) for the Electroacoustic Theatre – Sound Told Fairy Tales. In December 2004 her piece "Canção de Izis" was published (score and CD) in the Literature, Music and Visual Arts Magazine, "Águas Furtadas", of the Academic Journalism Nucleus of Porto. Presently her works are edited by the mic.pt Ângela Lopes is a Composition teacher.