Helder Gonçalves

Helder Filipe Gonçalves was born in Castelo Branco in 1976. At the Conservatory of this city he finished the Complementary Piano Course. After a time at the Hot Clube Portugal Jazz School, he completed his degree in Composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, where he worked with Christopher Bochmann, António Sousa Dias and António Pinho Vargas, among others. He later completed a Post-Graduation in Educational Technologies at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Lisbon. He completed PhD seminars in Communication Sciences at the New University of Lisbon, where he worked on a thesis related to acousmatic music in audiovisual contexts, oriented by Prof. Dr. Tomás Henriques. After moving to the University of Beira Interior he concluded his PhD in Communication Sciences with a thesis on sound in contemporary Portuguese cinema, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Vasco Diogo. He teaches Sound Design on the Multimedia Design, Video Game Design and Development and Cinema courses at the University of Beira Interior; also on the Degree in Documentary Film at ESTA (IPT). He has taught Composition and Analysis and Composition Techniques at the Conservatories of Guarda, Covilhã, Fundão and Belmonte. He has taught Orchestration, Acoustics, Auditory Training and Sound for Video and Multimedia at ESART (IPCB).
He has made several arrangements, also music and sound for experimental films. He has assiduously created sound effects and musical compositions for plays premiered by Teatro das Beiras (Covilhã). He is a member of LabCom (UBI) and author of the book “O Som e a Música no Cinema Português – Processos Criativos seguido de entrevistas” (Sophia Prize for Art & Technique 2024).