João Costa Ferreira

João Costa Ferreira (b. 1986) is a Portuguese pianist and researcher. He holds the “Diplôme Supérieur d’Exécution” of the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and a PhD in Music and Musicology from Sorbonne Université.
Even though João Costa Ferreira’s repertoire covers all styles from Baroque onwards, he is specialized in music from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. In his solo and chamber music projects, he is as interested in the interpretation of the great classical repertoire as in the discovery of forgotten composers and the commissioning of works to contemporary composers. He has performed in concert halls in Portugal, France, Belgium, Spain and Netherlands. Many of his concerts and disc recordings have been broadcast by Antena 2 (Portuguese classic radio), by France Musique (French classic radio) and by several other European radio stations.
João Costa Ferreira has been playing an active role in the rehabilitation of Portuguese musical heritage through the publication and recording of works by José Vianna da Motta. Since 2015, in collaboration with the publisher AvA Musical Editions, he revised and prefaced more than thirty works, most of them never published before. In 2018, he released a disc with the world’s first recording of Cinco Rapsódias Portuguesas on label Grand Piano Records (Naxos group), a cycle that marks the beginning of the composer’s creative phase characterized by the use of Portuguese popular music. In 2020, João Costa Ferreira released on MPMP label the first album of the discography series José Vianna da Motta: Poemas Pianísticos dedicated to childhood works, an album that received the Honorable Mention from Grémio Literário. Together with pianist Bruno Belthoise, João Costa Ferreira recorded the entirety work for piano four-hands on labels MPMP and Coriolan.