António Chagas Rosa (Lisbon, 1960) studied Piano and History in his home town. Between 1984 and 1996, he lived in the Netherlands, where he made advanced studies in Contemporary Piano and Chamber Music Repertoire (Amsterdam) and in Composition (Rotterdam). He worked as a repetiteur at the Dutch Opera House (Het Muziekthater) and taught for six years at the Sweelinck Conservatorium of Amsterdam. From 1996 on, he teaches Chamber Music at the University of Aveiro (Portugal), where he obtained his PhD in 2006 upon a research on the relationship between rhythm and semantics in Schoenberg’s op. 15, Das Buch der hängende Gärten.
His composition output includes many song cycles, chamber music for large and small ensembles, various symphonic works, a concerto for piano and orchestra and two chamber operas. He wrote for KlangForum Wien, Ensemble Wiener Collage, “KammerensembleN” (Stockholm), the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon), and received commissions from the Portuguese Opera (Teatro Nacional de São Carlos), the Gulbenkian Foundation, the International Music Festival of Macau, the Nederlands Kamerkoor (Amsterdam), Ensemble Musicatreize (Marseilles), and Casa da Música (Oporto), among others. His second opera “Melodias Estranhas”, upon a libretto by the Dutch writer Gerrit Komrij, was commissioned by the cities of Oporto and Rotterdam for the 2001 edition of the “Cultural Capitals of Europe” and was premiered at the Rotterdams Stadsschouwburg in December 2001. In 2007, the Ensemble Musicatreize won a Victoire de la Musique (Radio France, Paris) for recordings that include António Chagas Rosa’s musical tale Les Sorcières. Two recent works have been frequently performed in France mainly: A Wilde Mass, for 12 mixed voices and organ (Ensemble Musicatreize of Mareseilles, dir. Roland Hayrabedian) and Lumine clarescet, for 18 mixed voices (Les Éléments de Toulose, dir. Joël Suhubiette).
In 2019, four new cd’s with works by António Chagas Rosa were released, among which the recording of his recent cello concerto (Circumnavigare) with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa (Pedro Amaral, conductor and Filipe Quaresma, soloist). New projects include a violin concerto and a chamber opera for Teatro de S. Luís (Lisbon, 2022) based on a novel by the Portuguese poet Mário de Sá-Carneiro.
(last update: 2022)