Rui Lopes & English Chamber Orchestra

Although Rui Lopes only began studying the bassoon at eighteen, his musical temperament and virtuosity were quickly recognized and received many awards, including first prize in the prestigious Estoril International Competition. One of the

most promising bassoonists of his generation, he shares his great passion for music with concert audiences all over the world.
Solo and Chamber Music
Rui has appeared as a soloist with Zurich Symphony Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Czech Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin, Finnish National Opera, Algarve Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Artists Orchestra, Beiras
Philharmonia, Collegium Musicum Basel, Camerata Antiqua de Curitiba, Portuguese Symphony and other orchestras.
He performs regularly with outstanding musicians including Konstantin Lifschitz, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Alina Pogostkina, Razvan Popovici, Maximilian Hornung, Nabil Shehata, Marcelo Nisinman, Dimitri Ashkenazy, Sebastian Manz, Ramon
Ortega, Nicholas Daniel and Loïc Schneider. Rui has played at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Festival Bohuslav Martinu, SoNoRo Festival, Crusell Festival, Oficina de Música de Curitiba, Lucerne and other festivals and worked with personalities such as Christoph Eschenbach, Jiri Belohlavek, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Wynton Marsalis.
Orchestra
As principal bassoon, he has performed with Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre
de Paris, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Modern Orchestra, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Festival Strings Lucerne and Camerata Bern.

From Baroque to Contemporary
A fascination for Baroque and enthusiasm for Contemporary music have led from the study of early music on period instruments with Marc Vallon in Paris to the contemporary with Pascal Gallois and Pierre Boulez at the Lucerne Festival
Academy, giving Rui an unusually broad repertoire. He works with the Ancient Music Capriccio Basel as well as contemporary music ensembles such as Music Factory and Ensemble Laboratorium, where he is founding member.
His love for Argentinean Tango and Portuguese Fado styles often informs Rui’s own distinctive arrangements.
Born in Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal, Rui lives in Basel with Swiss wife Barbara and their two sons. He studied with Hugues Kesteman in Artave and Porto Music Academy, Sergio Azzolini at the Music Academy in Basel (soloist diploma with distinction) and with Marco Postinghel at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich. Rui taught the bassoon and chamber music at the Aveiro University (2006-2010) and Metropolitana Academy (2010-2012) and teaches masterclasses. He plays a Peter de Koningh Baroque bassoon ‘after J.H. Eichentopf’ and a Heckel 13227 modern bassoon.

ENGLISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

The English Chamber Orchestra is the most recorded chamber orchestra in the world, its discography containing 860 recordings of over 1,500 works by more than 400 composers. The ECO has also performed in more countries than any other orchestra, and played with many of the world’s greatest musicians. The American radio network CPRN has selected ECO as one of the world’s greatest ‘living’ orchestras. The illustrious history of the orchestra features many major musical figures. Benjamin Britten was the orchestra’s first Patron and a significant musical influence. The ECO’s long relationship with Daniel Barenboim led to an acclaimed complete cycle of Mozart piano concertos as live performances and recordings, followed later by two further recordings of the complete cycle, with Murray Perahia and Mitsuko Uchida. Tours in 2013 and 2014 included Siberia, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland and the USA as well as concerts across the UK and at London’s Royal Festival Hall and Cadogan Hall. A busy 2015 will include Asia, Europe and return invitations to Festivals in Bermuda, Finland and Switzerland. The Orchestra has been chosen to record many successful film soundtracks including Dario Marianelli’s prizewinning scores for Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, and several James Bond soundtracks, and has taken part in a variety of other film and television projects, most recently Tony Palmer’s new portrait of Benjamin Britten for Sky TV. The ECO is proud of its outreach programme, Close Encounters, which is run by the musicians in the orchestra and takes music into many settings within communities and schools around the UK and abroad.