Fátima Fonte studied composition at ESMAE, Porto (Bachelor’s degree) and at the Conservatory of Amsterdam (Master’s degree). As part of her interest in vocal music and different musical traditions, she went to India to study Hindustani music with singer Aparna Gurav, supported by a grant from the Oriente Foundation.
Her works have been performed at the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam, Nieuw Ensemble), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK, Icarus Ensemble), Gaudeamus Music Week (Netherlands, orkest de ereprijs), Festival 33,7 (Luxembourg, United Instruments of Lucilin), CCB (Lisbon), UNESCO headquarters (Paris), Milton Court Theatre (London), among others.
In recent years, she has worked intensively with music for the stage in Portugal, having been a Young Composer Associate at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in the 2017–2018 season. In 2021, her chamber opera Concílio Celeste (libretto by Patrícia Portela) was premiered at FIO – Festival Informal de Ópera, which she co‑organised as part of a collective. In 2022, she wrote the songs Tabaco and Voar na diagonal for Cristina Branco, Bernardo Couto and Ensemble Des Equilibres, with original text by Gonçalo M. Tavares, performed in several French cities and at Casa da Música (Porto). She composed the music for Ana Morphose – a João Rodrigues’ stop‑motion animated short film, which premiered in 2023 and screened at around 120 international film festivals. She has also written for the Sound’Ar‑te Electric Ensemble (in collaboration with choreographer Joana Providência), the Portuguese Guitar and Mandolin Orchestra, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, and the Portuguese Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2025, her opera Abelardo e Heloísa, with Patrícia Portela’s libretto, was premiered at the 2nd edition of FIO in Loulé. That same year her pieces Passiflora, for the Ensemble Contemporâneo da Póvoa de Varzim, and Harpa de Ervas, in collaboration with videographer Adriana Romero, conceived for the inauguration of the Museu da Música, were also premiered.
She has recently completed a PhD in Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London) on the subject of visible music.
