Amílcar Vasques-Dias

Born in Badim, Monção, in 1945. He studied Piano and Composition at the Conservatories of Music of Porto and Braga. He was a grantee of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Secretary of State for Culture for a Master’s degree in Instrumental and Electroacoustic Composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, in the Netherlands, having Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Jan van Vlijmen and Dick Raaijmakers as his main teachers. His work with Karlheinz Stockhausen, in the Netherlands; with Iannis Xenakis, in Aix-en-Provence, France; and with Cândido Lima, in Portugal, was so relevant that it led him to consider those composer-teachers as the most influential in his formation as a musician and composer. In 1989, he met Fernando Lopes-Graça, to whom he presented his compositions created in the Netherlands. Since then, he began to pay more attention to Portuguese traditional music, manifesting its influence in some of his works. In the Netherlands, where he lived for 14 years, he developed artistic and pedagogical activity as a pianist and composer.

As a pianist, he has performed his own music, giving concerts in Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Russia, Canada, and the United States of America.

As a composer, he has received commissions from: the Ministry of Culture of the Netherlands, the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, the Foundation for Musical Creation, the De Volharding Foundation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Camões Institute, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Expo ’98, Musicamera Produções, the municipalities of Matosinhos, Porto, Évora and Lisbon, in the field of instrumental and vocal chamber music, electroacoustic music, symphony orchestra, brass band, accompanied or a cappella choir, multimedia works, opera, and music for film and theatre. His music has been performed in Portugal and in other countries in Europe, America, Japan, and China, especially at contemporary music festivals.

Based on librettos by Helena da Nóbrega, he wrote the operas Soror Mariana Alcoforado (2017), performed and presented at the Convento dos Capuchos (Almada) and in Évora; and Geraldo e Samira – uma ópera para Évora (2019), presented in two performances in Évora. In 2024, he composed the opera As sombras de uma azinheira, on Eduarda Freitas’ libretto based on the homonymous novel by Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio, produced by Ritornello Associação Cultural and presented in Coimbra, Évora, Oliveira do Bairro and Amarante.

He has several works recorded on different CDs released in the Netherlands and Portugal, some of which are exclusively of his own music, namely Doze Nocturnos em Teu Nome, by pianist Álvaro Teixeira Lopes; Canções de Évora by pianist João Vale and soprano Cláudia Pereira Pinto; Lume de Chão – tecido de memórias e afectos, on the CD Viagens na Minha Terra, by pianist Joana Gama. Parallel to his activity as a composer, he carried out projects fusing classical piano with jazz, having recorded the CD Desnudo with jazz singer Joana Machado, and with traditional music, namely with cante alentejano, which resulted in the CD Em cante – música do Alentejo.

He met and accompanied José Afonso in 1978, in the Netherlands, and since then has dedicated himself to studying and recreating his music, having created with violinist Luís Pacheco Cunha and flamenco singer Esther Merino the project José Afonso, de ouvido e coração, recorded on CD in 2023. From his return from the Netherlands in 1988 until 2010, he was a professor at the Universities of Aveiro and Évora, and at the Escolas Superiores de Música de Lisboa and Porto.

He was the mentor and artistic director of the Encontro de Música do Alentejo do séc. XX from 1998 to 2009.