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The Brazilian soprano, Valquíria de Souza Gomes, graduated in music from the Centro de Formação Artística e Tecnológica (CEFART) of the Fundação Clóvis Salgado, in the class of tenor Néstor Gurry. She graduated in opera singing from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) (February 2010-December 2013), where she studied with Mônica Pedrosa and Mauro Chantal, and furthered her studies in opera at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, Germany (graduating: September 2016), under the guidance of Michael Gehrke.
In Brazil and Germany, Valquíria Gomes has brought to life important opera characters, such as Belinda in Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Melia in W.A. Mozart's Apollo et Hyacinthus K. 38, Flaminia in Joseph Haydn's Il Mondo della Luna, and the protagonists Pamina in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte K. 620, and Lauretta in Giacomo Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. In symphonic concerts, she has been a soloist in performances of W.A. Mozart's Requiem in D minor K. 626 and J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 202 in Weimar, and in Duke Ellington's Second Sacred Concert with the Coral Lírico de Minas Gerais and the CEFART Big Band. In 2023, she was a soloist in J.S. Bach's Cantata BWV 10 and Magnificat in D major BWV 243, conducted by Masaaki Suzuki, one of the world's leading experts on the work of the German master.
Valquíria Gomes's extensive experience as a choral singer includes performances in Germany with the Junges Stuttgarter Bach Ensemble (JSB Ensemble), Chorakademie Lübeck, Symphonischer Chor Bamberg, and EuropaChorAkademie (March-April 2019; Director: Joshard Daus), groups with which she has toured China, South Korea, Denmark, Slovakia, and Italy. She also participated as a singer and soloist with the Arcadia Ensemble, a vocal group from Berlin, and in Belo Horizonte, she was a member of both Ars Nova, the award-winning and historic choir of UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), and the Coral Lírico de Minas Gerais, a group with which she also performed as a soloist.
Passionate about chamber music, Valquíria Gomes was a founding member of Grupo Phrase, an a cappella vocal septet dedicated to jazz, pop music, and MPB (Brazilian Popular Music). She was also a member of Grupo Vocal Libertas, with which she performed at the Prelúdio award ceremony, promoted by TV Cultura, and A Liga Dura. With Daniel Grajew, she is part of the Duo Soma and maintains the Duo Retratos da Canção with guitarist Anderson Reis, with whom she also develops the research project entitled Retratos da Canção Brasileira (Portraits of Brazilian Song).
Valquíria Gomes participated in the Festival de Inverno de Campos de Jordão and, in Chile, attended the Academia Internacional Teatro del Lago, where she performed J.S. Bach's Johannes-Passion BWV 245 under the baton of Helmuth Rilling. At these and other events, she took master-classes with the Argentinian soprano specializing in early music, Maria Cristina Kiehr, with the German music professor and opera director Gerd Uecker, with the German soprano Susanne Bernhard, with the German bass Thomas Thomaschke, and with the Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Vesselina Kasarova. She has also collaborated with prestigious conductors such as Hans-Christoph Rademann, Joshard Daus, and Rolf Beck.
Valquíria Gomes is a Professor at the Centro Musical Adorarte and, during her master's studies in Germany, researched the song A Fada Negra by Glauco Velázquez. Of the many memories with the Coro da Osesp (joined in May 2019), the most striking remains that of her first rehearsal with the group and the emotion she felt upon hearing the sound of that ensemble. She currently lives in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. |
