João Vaz

Born in Lisbon, João Vaz graduated in organ from the Higher School of Music in Lisbon, studying with Antoine Sibertin-Blanc, and from the Higher Conservatoire of Aragon, in Zaragoza, where he studied with José Luis González Uriol, on a scholarship from the Gulbenkian Foundation. He has a doctorate in Music and Musicology from the University of Évora, where his thesis, on Portuguese organ music in the end of the Ancien Regime was supervised by Rui Vieira Nery. He has been extremely active internationally, both as a performer and as a teacher on organ courses, and as a jury member in competitions. He has made more than ten solo recordings, significant among them those made on Portuguese historic organs. He currently teaches organ at the Higher School of Music in Lisbon. He is artistic director of the organ festivals in Madeira and Mafra, as well of the concert series featuring the six organs of the Basilica of the National Palace of Mafra (for the restoration of which he was a permanent consultant) and of the historic organ in the Church of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon, of which he became titular organist in 1997. In 2017 João Vaz was awarded the Medalha de Honra of the Municipality of Mafra.