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The Portuguese tenor, Fernando Guimarães, completed his singing degree in Operto and went on to win awards in Portugal’s foremost singing competitions, such as the Concurso Nacional de Canto Luísa Todi and the Young Musicians Award (both in 2007). As the winner of the L’Orfeo International Singing Competition, he sang the leading role of this Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo in Mantova (on the 400th birthday of its premiere), Berlin and Budapest.
Fernando Guimarães is regularly invited as a soloist by renowned groups such as L’Arpeggiata (Director: Christina Pluhar), Cappella Mediterranea and Clematis Ensemble (Director: Leonardo García-Alarcón), Ensemble Pygmalion (Director: Raphaël Pichon), Le Parlement de Musique (Director: Martin Gester), Les Muffatti (Director: Peter Van Heyghen), Vox Luminis (Director: Lionel Meunier), etc. He was part of the european tours of the Ambronay European Baroque Academy in 2008 and 2009, with programs devoted to Giovanni Gabrieli (under the conducting of Jean Tubéry) and W.A. Mozart (with Martin Gester).
In Portugal, Fernando Guimarães is a regular fixture at the renowned Gulbenkian Foundation and Centro Cultural de Belém, and works frequently with the country’s most important orchestras and foremost early music ensembles, namely Orquestra Divino Sospiro and Os Músicos do Tejo. His discography comprises recordings for the labels Virgin, Ricercar and Ambronay Editions.
Recent highlights of Fernando Guimarães’ flourishing career include: an european tour with the role of Noè in the oratorio Il Diluvio Universale by Michelangelo Falvetti (Cappella Mediterranea); the role of Abramo in the modern première of Nicola Conti’s oratorio Isacco, figura del Redentore (with Les Muffatti at the Brugges Festival); and Giovanni Bontempi’s opera Il Paride, with L'Arpeggiata at Potsdam’s Sanssouci Festival. Among his future engagements, we can count the title role of Orphee in La Descente d’Orphee aux Enfers by Marc-Antoine Charpentier with Les Arts Florissants; a recording of J.S. Bach’s Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244) (for the label Mirare, with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne); and his debut as Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff (Gulbenkian). |
