Sunday, October 21, 11.00 am
Sé Cathedral

Sunday mass
Cecília Rodrigues, soprano
Sérgio Silva, organ

The greater part of music involving the organ was conceived for liturgical purposes. As other artists at the Madeira Organ Festival have done in preceding years, the organist Sérgio Silva and the soprano Cecília Rodrigues will collaborate at the Sunday Eucharist. Religious music from Portugal and England (specifically that of Edward Elgar, himself a Catholic) can be heard in the context for which it was written.

Cecília Rodrigues

Cecília Rodrigues began studying the piano at the IGL, and later vocal technique with Elsa Cortez at the same school. At the age of 18 she went to the EMCN, where she studied singing with Manuela de Sá. She continued her studies at the Higher School of Music in Lisbon, where she is currently completing a masters in music education with Luís Madureira. She has worked with Lucia Mazzaria, Milagros Poblador, João Paulo Santos and David Santos, and she works regularly with the baritone Luís Rodrigues.
She has won the 2013 Prize for the performance of Portuguese music in the City of Fundão International Competition; the First Prize and Prize for the performance of Portuguese music in the City of Almada International Competition 2015; and the First Prize in Singing in the Youg Musicians’ Prize, Radio 2 – RTP. She appeared as a soloist in the “Sons da Água” festival in 2016 and 2017, under the direction of António Costa. She collaborated with the Olisipo Vocal Group in a concert dedicated to Monteverdi at the Belém Cultural Centre, and gave a recital with João Paulo Santos in the Serões Musicais festival at the Pena Palace in Sintra, later recorded for Radio 2. She sang Bess, from Porgy and Bess by Gershwin, in the Música no Colégio festival 2018, with the Coral São José, Ponta Delgada. She was a member of the Choir of the Casa da Música and is a member of the Gulbenkian Choir, with which he has performed as a soloist in a concert of music by Gershwin, and in Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

Sérgio Silva

Holding a masters degree from the University of Évora, Sérgio Silva began studying organ at the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon under João Vaz, and accompaniment and improvisation under António Esteireiro. In addition, he had the opportunity to work with a number of organists of international renown, such as José Luis González Uriol, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Jan Willem Jansen, Michel Bouvard, Kristian Olesen and Hans-Ola Ericsson. As a concert performer, he appears regularly both as a soloist and a member in a number of prestigious Portuguese ensembles, and has performed in Portugal, Spain, Italy. Great Britain, France, Germany and Macau. As a researcher, he has made a number of transcriptions of early Portuguese music. He currently teaches organ at the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon and at the Lisbon School of Sacred Music, and is titular organist of the Basilica of Estrela and of the Church of St Nicholas in Lisbon.