Researcher in the fields of Organology and Musical Acoustics, Pedro Bento (1962) obtained his PhD in Music (Organology) at the University of Edinburgh (dissertation: The Harpsichord: Its Timbre, Its Tuning Process, and their Interrelations, under the supervision of Darryl Martin and Arnold Myers). He also holds a Master in Music from the University of Aveiro (dissertation: Resources, Ideas, Conception and Material Realization at the Dawn of Electroacoustic Music: The Poème Electronique by Edgard Varèse, under the guidance of Isabel Soveral) and a degree in Musical Sciences from the Nova University of Lisbon. He has presented papers at Organology conferences at the Universities of Yale, South Dakota (Vermillion, USA), Edinburgh (Scotland) and Tessaloniki (Greece), the National Music Museum (Vermillion, SD), the Cantos Music Foundation (Calgary, Canada) and at the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia (Rome). He attended masterclasses with specialists in the field of early music, such as Robert Wooley, René Clemencic and David Reichenberg.
Pedro Bento was a professor at the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra. He has been teaching since 1983 at Conservatório de Música de Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian, where he is currently professor of Analysis and Composition Techniques and of the triennial chair of Acoustics and Organology, for whose introduction project in the context of the Complementary Offer he was responsible. In this conservatory, he has promoted annual thematic cycles of activities, in which he also collaborates as a lecturer and performer: «Ciclo de Homenagem a Edgard Varèse» (in collaboration with Arte no Tempo (2015/16), «I Ciclo Performance Historicamente Informada: Homenagem a Claudio Monteverdi” (2016/15) and “Ciclo de Homenagem a Claude Debussy” (2017/18). He formed and directs the Coro Senario, which is dedicated to the preparation of repertoire of historical interest based on a model of natural tuning and within historically informed criteria, applying in practice principles that are addressed in the subjects he teaches.
(last update: 2018)