Eli Camargo Jr

Eli da Glória Camargo Júnior – Musical Composition, Music and Image, Musical Synchronism

Born in São Vicente, state of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1956. He studied classical guitar with Henrique Pinto, graduating from the Santos Music College, and began his career as a soloist and in chamber groups in concerts in Brazil and Portugal. He has performed in venues such as the Santos Municipal Theater, São Paulo Museum of Art Theater, Aylton Escobar Hall, Noble Hall of the National Conservatory of Lisbon, Portuguese Society of Authors – Lopes Graça: National 80th Anniversary Celebrations, making the premiere of ‘Suite Rústica’ for Flute and Guitar. She participated in seminars with Abel Carlevaro and Edelton Gloeden, and for two years did an internship in “Virtuosity and Contemporary Portuguese Music” at the National Conservatory of Lisbon, under the guidance of Prof. José António Lopes e Silva – performing solo concerts with composers such as Filipe Pires, Clotilde Rosa and Jorge Peixinho.
Eli studied choral and orchestral conducting in several seminars and intensive courses in Brazil, at the Campos do Jordão Winter Festival, with Michel Philliphot and Hugh Ross, in Portugal with Robert Houlighan, in Spain, Lleida, with Peps Pratts and Erwin Lizt; in Alcalá de Henares with Arturo Tamayo. He formed and directed amateur and student choirs in Brazil and Portugal – Choir of Conservatório Municipal de Cubatão (São Paulo), ANPEB Choir (Alverca, PT), Ares Novos Choir (Alverca, PT), Choir of Chamber of the Escola de Música do Orfeão de Leiria – conducting them in concerts for several years in Brazil, Portugal and Italy.
He completed his Bachelor’s Degree and Degree in Composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, where he studied with José Carlos Buonacorso, Christopher Bochmann and António Pinho Vargas. He got his PhD in Composition at Évora University, where he was supervised by Christopher Bochmann and Vanda de Sá, with the research “Chamber Music and Synchronism: notational strategies”.
Since he settled in Portugal in 1985, he has been active in the area of music as a teacher of Guitar, Analysis and Composition Techniques and Chamber Music in the schools Conservatório Regional de Castelo Branco, Escola de Música de Torres Novas, Orfeão de Leiria , Academia de Música e Dança do Fundão, Escola de Música Canto Firme de Tomar, Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa and Instituto Piaget Campus de Almada.
He has created several projects supported and accompanied by the Ministry of Education in their realization, with emphasis on the discipline of Chamber Music: “Non-Conventional Ensembles” and “Network of Schools”, with the participation of Music Schools of Fundão, Tomar and Regional Conservatory of Castelo Branco; “The four corners of the House”, CCB Dias da Música, and “Acoustic Interface for a Monument” at the Jerónimos Monastery, in addition to concerts of his advanced students in the Vieira da Silva, Chiado and Mãe D’Água Amoreiras Museums.
For three consecutive years he created and directed the Chamber Music Courses held at the Escola de Música e Dança do Fundão, when he taught with Prof. Olga Pratts.
Since 1999 he has been a teacher at the Music School of the National Conservatory of Lisbon in the disciplines of Analysis and Techniques of Composition, Composition, Chamber Music and Techniques of Analysis and Performance. By invitation of the Board of this school, he came to implement the Basic Composition Course, where he teaches the disciplines of Composition and Analysis and Performance Techniques. In this institution, he creates the project Center of Music and Image.
Presenting his work as a composer since 2004, his music has been played, edited and recorded in Portugal and Brazil. High level instrumentalists and groups such as the Lisbon Contemporary Music Group or the Metropolitan Soloists, Entre Madeiras Trio, Júlio Guerreiro, Pedro Rufino, Manuel Toucinho, Paulo Amorim, Catherine Strinkx, Carlos Alves, Luis Gomes and others have welcomed his music and presented it in concerts. His work has also deserved the attention of cultural institutions – as examples are the Antena 2 Concert ‘A obra de Eli Camargo Junior para guitarra’ or the monographic concert ‘Elle’, held at Oculto da Ajuda, prod. Miso Music Portugal. Entre Madeiras Trio records his works, and MPMP and AVA Musical Editions have printed other works.
Eli continues to compose concert music – such as the recent quartet ‘José e o vento’, commissioned and premiered at the IIº Festival Internacional de Guitarra da Cidade do Fundão (2022) and ‘Lubramix V’ for Quintet with Guitar, premiered by Lopes Graça String Quartet and Yuri Marchese at Tomar, PT, in March of 2024 – and as Aggregate Researcher at CESEM, Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, he continues his research on Music and Image, Synchronism in Chamber Music, and Musical Composition.