Biography
Sara Carvalho is a Lecturer at the Department of Communication and Arts of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where she presently holds the position of vice director of the music undergraduate degree course. She is a fellow researcher of INET-md, and her research interests centre on the fields of Composition and Music Education.
As a composer, Sara is interested in the interaction of different Performing Arts, as an extension and transformation of musical thinking, and all aspects associated with gesture, musical narrative and performer-composer collaboration. Her folio has over 50 pieces that are played regularly both in Portugal and around the world, including commissions by ensembles and soloists of international merit, and prestigious international institutions. Several of her pieces are available on CD. In 2012 Numérica edited her first monographic CD “7 pomegranate seeds”. Many of her scores are published by the Portuguese Music Information & Investigation Centre.
In the field of Music Education, Sara is researching the influence of creative processes on the development of musical thinking in children. Research topics include: creativity in music education, optimization of teaching-learning in the classroom, influence of artistic music projects in the school and/or communities, adult musical education, and emotion and flow in musical context.
Between 2005 and 2017 she was regularly invited to sit on the panel of experts of the European Commission to evaluate projects for “Culture” and “Creative Europe” programs.
She has organized and has been a panel member of the scientific comities of many academic conferences and journals, among others, co-organized: 2011 and 2015 - "Performa - Conference on Performance Studies"; 2016, 2017 and 2019- "Orff-Schulwerk Meeting of the University of Aveiro"; 2016 and 2019 - "National Meeting of Composition and Musical Analysis: Educational Perspectives"; and 2017 - "1st International Conference Music for and by Children: Perspectives from Children, Composers, Performers and Educators" (musichildren'17). She has been invited as a jury for several competitions, including "9th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim" and the "International Competition: Arioso Musica Domani: International Competition Prize 2010 and 2012".
Her research work is presented at national and international conferences, and is published in different journals and book chapters, such as ASHGATE/SEMPRE Studies in The Psychology of Music Series and London: Imperial College Press.
