Diana Vinagre

Biography

Diana completed her PhD in Historical Musicology in 2021 under the supervision of Professors Rui Vieira Nery and Cristina Fernandes, with funding from the FCT, and has since been an Integrated Doctoral Researcher at the INET-md. Following her thesis on “The Cello in Sacred Music in Portugal between 1750 and 1834”, Diana has been recovering Portuguese repertoire from the 18th century and the early 19th century, both from a musicological and performance perspective, through the ensemble she founded, Ensemble Bonne Corde, as artistic director and cellist.

She maintains an intense career as a performer specialising in early music, having begun her studies at the Braga Conservatory, in her hometown, and later joined the class of Paulo Gaio Lima at the National Superior Orchestra Academy in Lisbon. After completing her undergraduate degree, her passion for historically informed performance led Diana to the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, the Netherlands. Under Jaap ter Linden, Diana earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Early Music with distinction, receiving the Top Talent scholarship awarded by the Conservatories of The Hague and Amsterdam. She was a member of the European Union Baroque Orchestra and took part in the Jerwood Project of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Diana collaborates with some of the most renowned early music ensembles, such as the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Capella Mediterranea, L’Arpeggiata, Les Arts Florissants, Orchestra of the 18th Century, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, B’Rock, Ludovice Ensemble, Holland Baroque, and Al Ayre Español, working under the direction of musicians such as René Jacobs, Bartold Kuijken, Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, Ton Koopman, Enrico Onofri, Laurence Cummings, Christina Pluhar, Frans Brüggen, and Lars Ulrik Mortensen. She performs regularly in Europe’s most prestigious concert halls, both in orchestral and chamber settings, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Opéra Garnier and Opéra Bastille in Paris, La Scala in Milan, Barbican Centre, Palau de la Música in Barcelona, Philharmonie de Paris, and Royal Albert Hall in London, as well as at major early music festivals such as Utrecht, Aix-en-Provence, Ambronay, and Bruges. Over the years, Diana has taken part in numerous recordings for various radio stations, such as Antena 2, Klara, BBC, and France Musique, and for specialised television channels such as Mezzo, Arte, and Culturebox, as well as for record labels including Alpha, Ricercar, Sony, and Winter & Winter.

In 2021, together with double bassist Marta Vicente, she founded the baroque orchestra Real Câmara, based in Lisbon, under the direction of Italian conductor and violinist Enrico Onofri, dedicated to the revival of Portuguese 18th-century orchestral repertoire. Alongside her work as a performer and researcher, Diana is also a professor of baroque cello at ESMAE-Porto.