Teresa Gentil

Biography

Composer, performer, and researcher. She holds a PhD in Musical Sciences (specialization in Ethnomusicology) from NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities (NOVA FCSH), with a dissertation on the construction of Amália Rodrigues’ voice (1939-1949), project funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/137392/2018). She holds an MA in the same field, a postgraduate degree in Education – Design and Development of Educational Projects from the University of the Azores, and a BA in Composition from the School of Music and Performing Arts (Porto).

She has composed for approximately sixty theatre and dance productions, as well as works for orchestra, ensemble, musicals, and operas. Gentil has participated in numerous collaborative, interdisciplinary, and community music projects involving children, young people, and elderly participants across diverse sociocultural contexts. She collaborates regularly with Fábrica das Artes/Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB), the Leça da Palmeira Music School, and the associations Cães do Mar (Terceira Island), Formiga Atómica (Lisbon), and Questão Repetida (Lagos). She has also developed several projects with the National Reading Plan (2014-2016) and the education and mediation service of Teatro Micaelense (2007-2009).

Gentil is the founder of Descalças Cooperativa Cultural, which promotes social inclusion through the arts, and of Prolíficas – Comunidade Compositoras Açores, an association dedicated to the promotion of contemporary music and organizer of the Prolífica Festival. She has taught piano at the Ponta Delgada Music Conservatory and Music Education at Colégio do Castanheiro (Ponta Delgada), where she also served as Head of the Arts Department.

She has received several awards, including the Joaquim de Vasconcelos Prize (Portuguese Society for Music Research – SPIM), the Career and Prestige Award (GICAV, Viseu), the Zeca Afonso Prize (Municipality of Almada), and the LabJovem Theatre and Music prizes (Regional Government of the Azores).

Selected works include the operas Ti Chitas, a voz que é uma montanha (commissioned by the Belém Cultural Centre); Vencer o Dia, created in collaboration with the Algarve Mental Health Association and the D’Aquém Mar Baroque Orchestra; Uma Conversa Infinita, in partnership with the Leça da Palmeira Music School and Casa da Música (Porto); the orchestral work ainda vou encontrar nos teus lábios um cravo, commissioned and performed by the Gulbenkian Orchestra in the collaborative performance Sounds of a Revolution, directed by multidisciplinary artist Mikhail Karikis; the theatre cycle Antiprincesas by Cláudia Gaiolas; the interactive exhibition Pharmácia Amália (CCB); and Raízes da Curiosidade, a performance developed by five artists and five neuroscientists, an initiative of the Champalimaud Foundation and the Belém Cultural Centre.