Paulo Ferreira de Castro

PAULO FERREIRA DE CASTRO studied Piano, Singing and Composition at the Oporto Music Conservatoire and graduated in Musicology from the University of Strasbourg (France) with a thesis on the reception of Claude Debussy. He further specialized in Music Dramaturgy, taking a Master of Arts degree at Leeds University (United Kingdom) in Opera Studies, with a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 2007 he took a PhD at the University of London (Royal Holloway College), with a thesis on music and language based on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He has been active as a researcher and a lecturer, mainly at the Departamento de Ciências Musicais of Universidade Nova de Lisboa (of which he is at present Executive Coordinator), and he is the author of many musicological studies, including co-authorship of a concise History of Portuguese Music which was awarded the Prize of Research and Essay-Writing of the Portuguese Music Council (Portuguese, French, English and Mandarin editions). He wrote music criticism for the weekly newspaper Expresso, and has taken part in many conferences, colloquia and pre-concert talks in Portugal, Brazil and several European countries, often as a guest speaker. In 1992 he took up the position of Artistic Director of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, and held this position until 2000, becoming a Director of the same Theatre in 1998. In this quality he was responsible for over 60 opera productions, from Monteverdi to Ligeti, alongside many concerts and recitals, as well as the programming of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra. As a stage director, he presented several productions at the TNSC. In 1998 he founded the International Festival of Contemporary Musics, “Music in November”. Paulo Ferreira de Castro was also a Chairperson of the Portuguese Society for Music Research (SPIM) between 2010 and 2013. He is a member of CESEM and supervised the edition project of Portuguese Music (PortugalSom) under the aegis of the Direcção-Geral das Artes (Ministry of Culture). At present his research activities focus on musical signification and intertextuality, as well as the philosophies of modernity.