Alexander Paine
Having been raised in a deeply musical household, Alexander was fascinated by music from an early age. At 14, he was afforded the opportunity to commence organ lessons through a scholarship offered by St Francis Xavier’s Catholic Cathedral in Adelaide. Within a few short years, he established himself as one of Adelaide’s leading organists, performing with local and national orchestras and choirs. In 2015, Alexander was granted a place at the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, a world leader in early music research, education and performance. Having elected to focus upon his studies as an organist, he completed his Masters in Early Music Performance in the class of Tobias Lindner in 2017, and Music Theory under the tuition of Florian Vogt in 2020. Immediately upon completing his studies at the Schola Cantorum, he was invited to serve as a music theory tutor for the Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany, a position he held from 2020-2022. At present, he is the organist for the Catholic Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Oberwil, where he also serves as conductor of the church choir. Alexander is currently based in Basel, and frequently performs across Switzerland and Australia, as well as having played concerts in England, France, Germany, Austria, and Lithuania. He is a frequent collaborator and professional partner with his wife Weronika – herself an accomplished harpsichordist and organist – and enjoys the challenge of realising projects in cooperation with her.
Ana dos Santos
Ana dos Santos began her musical studies at the Vila Real Regional Conservatory of Music. In 2006 she began singing studies with baritone Pedro Telles and in 2008 she enrolled at Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo in Oporto (ESMAE) in Rui Taveira's singing class. There, she earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Artistic Interpretation in Lyric Singing, and a Master's degree in Teaching Lyric Singing. She also worked with José Oliveira Lopes, Peter T. Harrison, António Salgado and Susan Waters. Throughout her artistic career she has performed various oratorios, operas and songs under the direction of several conductors, including José Ferreira Lobo, António Saiote, António Ferreira dos Santos, Tiago Ferreira, Martin Lutz, Wolfgang Schäfer, Pedro Neves, Jan Wierzba and Nuno Almeida. In world premieres, she performed the role of Narrator in the Paixão segundo S. João (Joaquim dos Santos), the piece for solo voice Prelúdio: Poesia (Nuno Costa), the role of Lucia in the opera Mátria (Fernando Lapa), and the role of Soldier in the opera O Auto dos Zarolhos (Antônio Vitorino de Almeida). With the support of the GDA Foundation, she recorded several Portuguese music projects with various ensembles, namely, Capella Duriensis (under the direction of Jonathan Ayerst), Metáfora das Flores (under the direction of Magna Ferreira), Suave Armonia (under the direction of Carlos Meireles), and the CD Lux et Umbra in collaboration with clarinettist Frederico Cardoso, performing the work for voice and clarinet Pranto (Carlos Dias).
António Esteireiro
Born in Lisbon, António Manuel Esteireiro graduated in Organ at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich, and in sacred music at the College of Catholic Church Music and Musical Education in Regensburg (Organ and Improvisation with Franz Josef Stoiber). These studies were only possible with the support of the Diocese of Regensburg and the Geiselberg Foundation of Munich. He later attended the organ classes of Hans-Ola Ericsson at the University of the Arts in Bremen. He has performed both as soloist and as a member of various choral and orchestral groups, in several European countries, Mexico and Brazil. As well as being a regular guest of the main organ concert cycles and festivals in Portugal, he also organized the Organ Concerts at the Basílica dos Mártires in Lisbon, and the Complete Organ Works of Olivier Messiaen, at Lisbon Cathedral, on the occasion of the composer's centenary. Professor of organ for the National Courses of Liturgical Music organized by the Sanctuary of Fátima in collaboration with the National Secretariat for Liturgy, he is also a regular collaborator with the Sacred Music Department of the Santa Maria de Belém Parish. As part of this collaboration, he undertook the programming of the Organ Concerts at the Jerónimos Monastery. He currently teaches organ and improvisation at the Gregorian Institute and at the Higher Music School of Lisbon.
Elisa Freixo
Elisa Freixo is an organist, harpsichordist, teacher, and researcher dedicated to early music and Brazilian organ heritage. A graduate of the Santa Marcelina Institute of Music, she pursued advanced studies in Germany and France, including the Hamburg University of Music and Performing Arts, the Schola Cantorum in Paris, and the Rueil-Malmaison National Conservatoire, where she studied with Guy Bovet, Marie Claire Alain, and Hughette Dreyfus. She maintains an intense artistic activity in Brazil and abroad, regularly performing as a soloist and chamber musician in countries throughout Latin America and Europe. She was the first organist to perform Bach's complete organ works in concert in Brazil. Her work combines performance, teaching, research, and the preservation of musical heritage. For decades, she has contributed to the appreciation of Brazilian historic organs, participating in restoration projects, organological consultancies, international congresses, and initiatives to train new musicians. She recorded thirteen albums and CDs. He also worked in radio, organising festivals and professional gatherings, and was one of the creators of the first Brazilian encounter of organists. As a teacher, she trained generations of musicians in Brazilian institutions and maintains an ongoing activity of courses aimed at both professionals and the public interested in music history, musical listening, and the culture of historical keyboard instruments.
Favola d’Argo
Favola d’Argo is a group formed by musicians united by a passion for early music and a solid background in historically informed performance, acquired in the most prestigious European centres. The name evokes the mythical voyage of the Argonauts aboard the Argo, among which was Orpheus, whose music accompanied the expedition and set the rhythm of the crossing. The image of the journey, the discovery, and the music as a force capable of crossing borders is at the heart of the group's artistic identity. Founded in 2013, it is dedicated to the discovery, interpretation, and revitalisation of Iberian, Italian, Ibero-American, and Luso-Brazilian musical heritage, with particular attention to lesser-known repertoires. The group has performed at leading festivals in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and Panama, including the Diamantina International Early Music Festival, Aste Nagusia in Bilbao, Espazos Sonoros de Galicia, De Lugares e Órganos: músicas e outras paisaxes in Compostela, Ciclo de Música de la Ilustración in Utrera, the IN SPIRITUM International Festival in Porto, and the Panama International Early Music Festival. The group's work combines historical rigour, expressiveness, and musicological research, seeking to establish a vibrant dialogue between the musical heritage of the past and the sensibilities of contemporary audiences. Each concert is thus conceived as a journey through time, spaces, and the instruments that gave rise to these musical pieces, restoring their expressive power and revealing the richness of a heritage that continues to have much to say in the present.
Gonçalo Pescada
Born in Faro in 1979, Gonçalo Pescada holds a PhD with distinction and honours in Music and Musicology from the University of Évora (2014) and a bachelor degree in Music from the University of Aplied Arts (Castelo Branco). He completed the Accordion Course from the Vitorino Matono Musical Institute (Lisbon). He was awarded several prizes, including: 1st Prize in the National Accordion Competition (Alcobaça, 1995), 1st Prize in the International Accordion Competition “Citá di Montese” (Italy, 2004) and 1st Prize in the Estoril Interpretation Competition (2006). He performed as a soloist with several orchestras, debuting and performing several works for the first time in Portugal. He has been invited to participate in prestigious festivals in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. He has recorded for radio and television and his discography includes CDs as a soloist, in chamber music and as soloist with orchestra. He is the dedicatee of several new compositions for accordion. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Évora and Researcher (integrated member) at CESEM – Center for the Study of Sociology and Musical Aesthetics.
Gregório Gomes
Gregório Gomes, born in 1987, is originally from Venezuela. At seven years old, he began his musical training at the Oliveira de Azeméis Music Academy, where he studied Musical Training, Piano, and Violin. He continued his studies at the Diocesan School of Liturgical Ministries of the Diocese of Oporto, studying Organ, Harmony, and Choral Conducting with António Mário Costa, under whose guidance he also completed the 8th grade in Organ at the Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian Conservatory of Music. He also attended the IV National Course in Liturgical Music with António Esteireiro and Filipe Veríssimo. He holds a degree in Harpsichord from the University of Minho and a master's degree in Organ Performance from the University of Aveiro. He has participated in masterclasses led by Olivier Latry, Ludger Lohmann, and Simon Preston. Since 2017, he has been the organist of Oporto Cathedral, where he coordinates the Cathedral Organ Concert Series. He regularly collaborates with communities in the dioceses of Braga and Porto and is a founding member of the Braga Association of Sacred Music, where he teaches piano, organ, and harmony. He maintains a regular artistic activity as a soloist and in collaboration with other musicians, performing at several of the main national organ festivals. He also holds a master's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Oporto.
João Vaz
Graduated in Organ by the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and by the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón in Zaragoza, João Vaz also holds a doctorate in Music and Musicology from the University of Évora, having defended a thesis on late--eighteenth-century Portuguese organ music. He has maintained an intense activity at an international level, either as a concert player or as a teacher in performance courses, or as a member of the jury of organ competitions. He made more than a dozen solo recordings, notably those made in Portuguese historic organs. He teaches Organ at Escola Superior de Música in Lisbon and is the artistic director of the Madeira Internacional Organ Festival and the Mafra Internacional Organ Festival, the latter together with André Ferreira, as well of the series of concerts that take place on the historic organ of São Vicente de Fora, in Lisbon (instrument whose titularity he assumed in 1997) and on six organs of the Basilica of the National Palace of Mafra (of which restoration he was a permanent adviser). In 2017, he was awarded the Medal of Honour from the Municipality of Mafra.
Javier Artigas
Born in Zaragoza, Javier Artigas began his musical training at the Escolanía de Infantes del Pilar under the tutelage of José Vicente González Valle. He studied piano, organ, and harpsichord with José Luis González Uriol and Monserrat Torrent, and took specialized courses with Radulescu, Alain, Rogg, Houbard, and Schnorr. He performs at major organ and early music festivals and is internationally recognised as one of the leading experts in Spanish historical music, both theoretically and practically. He has published new critical editions of the keyboard works of Bermudo and Jiménez and was part of the IFC/CSIC team responsible for the new transcription and critical edition of the Compendio by Antonio de Cabezón. He frequently teaches masterclasses and seminars on the interpretation of early music and is invited to serve on juries for several international organ and early music competitions. He was the titular organist of the Basilica del Pilar in Zaragoza and artistic director of the restoration of the Merklin organ (1854) in Murcia Cathedral. He is the organist of the Frédéric Desmottes organ in the Iglesia del Carmen in Murcia. A member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, he is a professor of organ and harpsichord at the Murcia Higher Music Consevatoire, a guest professor in the early music department of EsMuc (School of Music of Catalonia), and at the Italian Organ Week in Saorge, among other institutions. Since 2021, he is the director of the Daroca International Early Music Course and Festival. Recently, he was appointed Ambassador of the city of Zaragoza.
Laura Silva Mendes
Born in Porto da Cruz, Madeira Island, she began her musical studies at the age of six at the Associação Grupo Cultural Flores de Maio. Later, she began studying piano at the Madeira Conservatory - School of Arts, with Emesse Szepesi and then with Iryna Kózina, and organ with Halyna Stetsenko in the Professional Instrumentalist Course. In 2016, she completed her Bachelor's degree in Piano at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp (Belgium), with Polina Leschenko. In 2018, she completed her Master's degree in piano there with Polina Leschenko and Eliane Rodrigues, simultaneously completing her Bachelor's degree in organ with Joris Verdin. During these years, she participated in organ masterclasses with João Vaz, Ludger Lohmann, Michel Bouvard, among others. She has performed solo and with orchestras in several European countries, such as France, Germany, Belgium, and England. In 2021, she was honoured with the Grant Fund Award by the president of the Royal College of Music, Colin Lawson. In 2022, she completed her Master's degree in organ with Sophie-Veronique Cauchefer-Choplin at the prestigious Royal College of Music in London, where she was a fellow of the Eric Thompson Trust and the GDA Foundation. Currently, she is developing a project on Portuguese organ music, recording and publishing previously unperformed works. Alongside her concert career, she teaches organ at the Madeira Conservatory School of Arts and is completing her Master's degree in Music Teaching at the Lisbon Higher School of Music under the guidance of João Vaz.
Marco Orsini-Brescia
Marco Orsini-Brescia is a keyboard multi-instrumentalist having mastered the piano, harpsichord, organ, and clavichord, and endowed with remarkable technical virtuosity in a wide-ranging repertoire spanning the 16th to the 20th centuries. His album Zipoli in Diamantina: Complete Organ Works (Paraty / PIAS - Harmonia Mundi, 2020) received widespread acclaim from international critics, being recommended by the French magazine Diapason and a featured recording by the Spanish magazine Scherzo. Alongside harpist Maria Bayley, he recorded the album Manuel Rodrigues Coelho: Flores de Mvsica pera o instrumento de tecla, & harpa, vol. 5 (INVENTA Records / Resonus Classics, 2025). Orsini-Brescia holds a master's degree in Early Music/Historic Organ from the Catalonia College of Music, with matrícula de honor, and a doctorate in Historical Musicology from the Universities of Paris IV-Sorbonne and NOVA Lisbon, with highest mention, très honorable à l’unanimité. In Brazil, he was awarded the President Juscelino Kubitschek Medal of Honour. In addition to his artistic activities, he is an integrated researcher at the Center for Music Studies (NOVA-FCSH), where he coordinates the research group "Music in the Modern Period".
Nathan Laube
Nathan Laube’s extensive recital career includes major venues spanning four continents. He is regularly called upon to inaugurate important new organs. He recently took part in the inaugural concerts on the Rieger organ in the Helsinki Music Centre, and the Mühleisen organ in Moscow’s Zaryadye Concert Hall, among many others. He is a regular guest at the major organ festivals of Europe. In April 2019, he launched the documentary-style radio program, All the Stops, on the WFMT Radio Network Chicago, an eight-hour documentary series, contextualising great historic organs within their complex musical and extra-musical histories. Passionate about organ design and aesthetics, he also serves as a consultant or advisor for new instruments or restorations. Nathan Laube is Associate Professor of Organ at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. From 2020 to 2022, he served as organ professor at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. Since 2018, he serves as the International Consultant in Organ Studies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He has recently been invited as a Beaufort Visiting Fellows at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge for the autumn of 2026. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied with Alan Morrison (organ) and Susan Starr (piano), the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régionale de Toulouse where he studied with Michel Bouvard and Jan Willem Jansen under the auspices of a William Fulbright Grant, and the State University of Music and Performing Arts, where he studied with Ludger Lohmann with a DAAD Grant.
Madeira Classical Orchestra
The Madeira Classical Orchestra, which has been active for sixty years and is one of the oldest in Portugal, is recognised as the preferred ‘project’ for the dissemination of classical music, to complement the training of young musicians and to promote the region's artistic and cultural heritage. It had its origins in the Chamber Orchestra of the Madeira Academy of Music in 1964, created for the pedagogical purpose of the Higher Music Course. It has been honoured by the highest authorities, by His Excellency the President of the Republic, the Regional Government of Madeira, the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, the City Council of Funchal and, recently, by the University of Madeira. It was conducted by the titular conductors Zoltan Santa, Roberto Perez and Rui Massena and by guest conductors, namely Gunther Arglebe, Silva Pereira, Fernando Eldoro, Merete Ellegaard, Paul Andreas Mahr, Manuel Ivo Cruz, Miguel Graça Moura, Álvaro Cassuto, Jaap Schröder, Luis Izquierdo, Joana Carneiro, Cesário Costa, Paolo Olmi, Jean-Sébastian Béreau, Maurizio Dini Ciacci, Francesco La Vecchia, David Giménez, Martin André, Jean-Marc Burfin, Philippe Entremont, Maxime Tortelier, Rui Pinheiro, Pedro Neves, Beatrice Venezi, Ariel Zuchermann, Gianluca Marcianò, Benoit Fromanger, Ernst Schelle, Evan-Alexis Christ, Stefan Dohr, José Eduardo Gomes, Nuno Coelho, Albrecht Mayer among others; and renowned national and international soloists have performed with it. Managed by the Notas e Sinfonias Atlânticas Association since 2013, the Orchestra, under the artistic direction of Norberto Gomes, is embracing a bold artistic project.
Patrycja Gabrel
Patrycja Gabrel began her musical education at the age of seven, joining the Schola Cantorum Bialostociensis, one of Poland's finest female choirs, at the age of eleven. She graduated in Singing from the Fryderyk Chopin Conservatory of Music in Warsaw and continued her training at the Escuela Superior Reina Sofia in Madrid, under the guidance of Tom Krause. Since 2010 she has resided in Portugal, where she frequently appears on main stages, as well as various international festivals. She was a Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship recipient and a member of the Gulbenkian Choir between 2010 and 2014. Currently, she continues her vocal development with Joana Siqueira. As a soloist, she has sung under the direction of Michel Corboz, Michael Zilm, Paul McCreesh, Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, Lawrence Foster, among others. She has sung with the Divino Sospiro Orchestra, the Orquestra do Norte, the Orquestra Metropolitana, the Portuguese Chamber Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and also with the Gulbenkian Orchestra. Her vast repertoire includes oratorio, opera, and chamber music from the early Baroque period to contemporary music. Her opera repertoire includes, among others, the roles of Countess Almaviva (Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro), Violetta (Verdi's La Traviata), Micaela (Bizet's Carmen), Lucia (Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor), and Lulu (Alban Berg's Lulu). She participated in the modern premieres of João Cordeiro de Silva's Il Natal di Giove and António Leal Moreira's Ester (roles of Adrasto and Ester, respectively).
Simeón Galduf
A multi-talented musician born in Llíria (Valencia), Simeón Galduf began his studies at the Unión Musical. He continued his training at the Valencia Music Conservatoire with Rafael Tortajada and Joaquín Vidal, concluding his studies under the direction of Juan Bautista Abad at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. He received a scholarship from the Spanish Youth Music Association and was a member of the Spanish National Youth Orchestra. He premiered several trombone concertos by contemporary Spanish composers. He has collaborated with numerous ensembles, including the Valencia Orchestra, the RTVE Symphony Orchestra, the Malaysian Symphony Orchestra, Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, Les Ars Florissants, Capella Reial de Catalunya, the Seville Baroque Orchestra, among others. He regularly performs at national and international festivals, both in Europe and America. Among his awards, the following stand out: the Prize at the 6th Città di Asti International Trombone Competition and the second prize at the Concours International de Cuivres Anciens de Toulouse. He has recorded for NB, Naxos, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and Sony. He is currently a member of the Ministriles de Marsias, a trombone and sackbut professor, and a professor in the master's program in performance at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. Since 1990, he has also been principal trombonist of the Madrid Symphony Orchestra. He has taught historical trombone at ESMUC and in the master's programme organised in partnership by this institution and UAB.
