Ana BeatriZ FERREIRA

Born on a scorching August afternoon in the beautiful region of Alentejo, southern Portugal, Ana Beatriz has always been surrounded by music. The daughter of two classical music enthusiasts, she was drawn to the piano from an early age, beginning formal lessons at seven. By eight, her fascination with Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto had made him her favourite composer. During her adolescent years at the National Conservatoire in Lisbon, she completed her final piano exam with full marks and developed a keen interest in Russian music.

Ana Beatriz is now a prolific recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with performances across Portugal, the UK, and Canada. One of her most significant achievements was organising and performing the UK premiere of the Piano Concerto by Portuguese composer Joly Braga Santos in London in 2015, under the baton of Pablo Urbina with the In Tune Orchestra. This performance led her to pursue a PhD in Piano Performance at Cardiff University, where she received a full scholarship, recently concluded her doctoral degree, and became an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Since 2015, she has also performed the Joly Braga Santos Piano Concerto at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff with the Cardiff University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mark Eager, and toured Portugal with the Portuguese Philharmonic Orchestra, under Osvaldo Ferreira. Her collaborations extend to performances with the Filarmonia das Beiras Orchestra, Maia Chamber Orchestra, Cardiff University String Orchestra, and the Cardiff Contemporary Music Group.

Ana Beatriz holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Music, a Master’s Degree in Performance from the Royal College of Music in London, and a PhD in Piano Performance from Cardiff University. She studied under notable tutors such as Ruth Nye MBE, Gordon Fergus-Thompson, and Dina Parakhina. Her studies were supported by Grupo Jerónimo Martins, Amigos de Música de S. Lourenço, and Mundo Crastino Meliori Foundation.

Her participation in masterclasses with pianists such as Luiz de Moura Castro, Paul Badura-Skoda, Vitaly Margulis, Boris Berman, Dmitri Alexeev, Enrico Pace, Ingrid Fliter, and Boris Petruchansky has dramatically enriched her skills. Alongside her performance career, Ana is a piano tutor at the Junior Conservatoire of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, an Associate Lecturer at Cardiff University, and has taught masterclasses in Portugal, the UK, and Thailand for Silpakorn University’s Department of Music.

In 2023, Ana completed her PhD at Cardiff University, focusing on Joly Braga Santos. Her research led to the composer’s rediscovery of several lost works, resulting in new performance editions published by AvA Musical Editions. To mark the centenary of the composer’s birth, Melographia Portugueza released her world premiere CD featuring thirteen of these works, recorded with London-based Slovenian violinist Lana Trotovsek.