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The Portuguese mezzo-soprano, arts administrator and music educator, Laura Lopes, started her musical studies at the Gregorian Institute in Lisbon, playing the harpsichord. Later on she finished her Bachelor of Arts degree in Choir Conducting and Music Pedagogy at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (2010-2013) and was an Erasmus student at the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary. She studied Early Music Singing at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag with Rita Dams, Jill Feldman, Pascal Bertin and Peter Kooij (2013-2017), where she had the opportunity to work in projects with Frans Brüggen, Peter Van Heyghen, Mike Fentross, etc. She then obtained her Post-graduate Certificate in Arts Policy and Management from Birkbeck, University of London (2017-2019).
Laura Lopes has been active as a freelance mezzo-soprano since September 2009. Since moving to The Netherlands, she has sung with Cappella Amsterdam (Director: Daniel Reuss), Nederlandse Bachvereniging (Director: Jos van Veldhoven), Nederlands Kamerkoor (Director: Peter Dijkstra, Groot Omroepkoor, Laurens Collegium Rotterdam, Rotterdam Symphony Chorus, Meesters en Gezellen and was a member of the Tenso Europe Chamber Choir in the season 2014 and 2016 (with Kaspars Putnins and Paul Hillier). Since then, she has become active in the various TENSO (European Network for professional chamber choirs) activities such as the Tenso Days and the Tenso Professionals Meetings, both as a young professional singer and as a assistant producer.
In the 2015-2016 season, Laura Lopes started singing with the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, being asked to become a fellow of the Young Bach Fellowship of the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, and with the Nederlands Kamerkoor under direction of Hartmut Haenchen. She is also since 2016 singing regularly with Cappella Amsterdam under the direction of Daniel Reuss (since April 2016). 2017 solo engagements included J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 134 in Kampen, Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas in Lagoa and Vale do Lobo in Portugal under the direction of Adrian Rodríguez van der Spoel and Stabat Mater by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi in Kerkwijk.
In September 2015 Laura Lopes co-founded the early music chamber ensemble Le Voci delle Grazie with whom she performed in early music festivals in Belgium, Italy, Latvia and The Netherlands (2015-2018). Currently she is Festival Assistant at Brighton Early Music Festival (since July 2019); and Coordinator at Tenso Network Europe (since March 2020). |
