Frederico Bezerra

Biography

He holds a PhD in Musicology, specialising in Ethnomusicology, from NOVA University of Lisbon (2026), with a thesis entitled ‘Samba-enredo: composition and performance of resistance’, supervised by Prof. Dr Rui Cidra. In his thesis, he analyses the Brazilian carnival musical genre samba-enredo as a practice of resistance within Black diasporic culture. For his Master’s degree in the same field, he submitted a thesis on “Samba-enredo in Florianópolis: Historical perspectives and the production of samba-enredo among members of Protegidos da Princesa” (State University of Santa Catarina, 2010). He is also a musician and piano teacher, having collaborated with the Bolshoi Theatre School of Brazil, the Fausto Rocha Júnior Cultural Foundation in Joinville (Brazil), and, currently, with the Amadeu Gaudêncio Primary and Secondary School in Nazaré (Portugal). He is the author of various academic publications about carnival and a composer of carnival music, which has been performed in several Brazilian samba scenes; to date, he has been awarded six prizes for these compositions. He is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md, NOVA FCSH).