Who goes for contemporary?

Madalena Soveral; one of the world's leading pianists specialized in the field of contemporary music




Madalena Soveral was born in Porto, where she studied music. She continued her training at the Porto Conservatory of Music, an then, sponsored by a grant from the SEC, at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, where she obtained the “Licence de concert”. First studing under mother guidance, Hélia Soveral, she also studied under Reine Gianoli, Marian Rybicki, and Claude Helffer. In 1966 she awarded the “900 Musicale Europeo” prize, in Naples (Italy).

Madalena Soveral has given concerts since 1990, both solo and with orchestra, as well as various forms of chamber music festivals of Naples, Santiago de Compostela, Sceaux, Festival de Montpellier-Radio France, Mantova (Italy), The UNESCO Twentieth Century Music Festival (Paris), Música Nova (Brasil), The 1st Lisbon Festival of Contemporary Musics (Lisbonne, T.N.S.C.), as well as at the Academia de Santa Cecília (Roma), The Theatre du Rond-Point, Auditorium des Halles and The Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro.
During her career, Madalena Soveral has focussed on a 20th century repertoire working with a variety of composers and performers. Of special importance in this field is her work with the composer Giacinto Scelsi and with the “Les Percussions de Strasbourg” group, as well as her collaboration with the pianist Jean-Louis Haguenauer and the percussionists Christian Hamouy and Georges Van Gucht.
Madalena Soveral has performed the world premiere of numerous pieces, including those written especially for her : Estudos de Sonoridades (Filipe Pires), Interrogations (Miguel Graça Moura), Dominos (Sharon Kanach), In Tempore, for piano and electronic (João Pedro Oliveira), and Episode, for two pianos and two percussions (Francis Bayer).

Today, Madalena Soveral works as a Professor (and Coordinator) at the Escola Superior de Música e das Artes do Espectáculo do Porto. Besides that she is working on a research project on 20th Century Portuguese Piano Music, at the University of Paris 8. Étude Analytique des Litanies du feu et de la mer d’Emmanuel Nunes, carried out between 1997-99, constitued the first part of that work. In 2005 she completed the Doctorat in Music with the teses Quatre compositeurs, Quatre oeuvres: la musique portugaise pour piano des années 90, about the piano’s compositions from António Pinho Vargas, Filipe Pires, João Pedro Oliveira, and João Rafael.
In 2006 Madalena Soveral joined the research Center CESEM (Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical) of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

The artist has issued several CDs, among which is particularly reboant a CD with the complete Schönberg's piano-solo works:

http://www.madalenasoveral.com/