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Pianists

Eduardo Jordão

Pianists Coordinator

Graduated in piano performance in the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. Eduardo won the 1st Prize in the “1st Lopes-Graça Competition”.

As a soloist and in chamber groups he performed in France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Luxemburg, Brazil and China. On mainland Portugal and portuguese Islands he performed on several stages from north to south.

Since 2007, he has maintained the piano duo “20Fingers” (4-hands) that explores music from classical to jazz.
In 2014, he recorded his first album with singer Joana Rios. This album, titled “Retrato a Cores”, contains original songs wrote by himself.

In 2018, supported by the General Directorate of Arts, he launched his second album together with cellist Samuel Santos, entitled “Canções sem Palavras”, which contains the works for cello and piano by Portuguese composer Eurico Carrapatoso.

Also with the support the General Directorate of Arts, the phonographic record of the recital “20Fingers – from Mozart to Chico Buarque” was released 2020. This work was presented at the International Piano Festival of the Algarve and taken on tour through Brazil and China in the summer of 2021 and 2024.

Eduardo collaborated as a pianist, composer and arranger with several groups from different musical universes, such as: Couple Coffee, Rumos Ensemble, Coro Infantil e Juvenil from the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon, Solistas de Lisboa, Companhia de Ópera de Setúbal, Colorado All State Choir, among others. Eduardo Jordão, since 2002, teaches piano, chamber music and accompaniment/improvisation at the Setúbal’s Conservatory from wich he belongs to the directive board.

Fernando Loura

Fernando Loura is currently a young pianist at Opernhaus Zürich, in Switzerland.

He studied opera in Italy (Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence) and in England (National Opera Studio in London), where he performed in concerts with the English National Opera, Opera North in Leeds and Welsh National Opera in Cardiff.

As a répétiteur, he worked in productions at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos (Lisbon), Opera Vlaanderen (Antwerp), Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Florence), Opernhaus Zürich and Bühnen Bern.

He is a pianist accompanist for the Belvedere Singing Competition 2024 and the Lousada International Lyric Singing Competition.

Before dedicating himself to opera, he completed a Master’s degree in Piano Performance at the Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona and a Bachelor’s degree at ESML in Lisbon.

Michael Sikich

Michael Sikich is a pianist, song recitalist, and vocal coach based in Sweden, where he is on the music staff at the Gothenburg Opera. A native of Santa Barbara, California, he has performed across Europe and the United States at venues including the Barbican Hall, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, LSO St. Luke’s, Cadogan Hall, St. Martin in the Fields, and on broadcasts for BBC Radio 3. He has been invited to perform song recitals at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam as well as Opéra de Lyon and he made his BBC Proms debut in a recital of American song celebrating the centennial of Leonard Bernstein with mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta.

Michael joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 2020, where he was employed for two seasons as a member of the music staff. He was chief repetiteur for more than 12 productions, working with singers such as Lisette Oropesa, Pretty Yende, and Christian Gerhaher as well as conductors Antonio Pappano, Daniele Rustioni, Dan Ettinger and Constantin Trinks, among others.


Michael was winner of the grand prize Eugène Pannebakker Lied Duo Award together with mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska at the 53rd International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. He is a prizewinner of the International Helmut Deutsch Lied Competition, a semifinalist at the 2017 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, and winner of the piano accompaniment prize from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he completed a postgraduate degree with Julius Drake.


Michael received his bachelors degree in solo piano from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music under the instruction of Edward Auer and in addition to earning a postgraduate degree at the Guildhall School, he undertook further studies at the Kunstuniversität Graz in Austria with Julius Drake. He is a Samling Artist and an alumnus of the Solti Accademia, the Music Academy of the West, the Aspen Music Festival and School, the SongStudio Program at Carnegie Hall, the Franz Schubert Institute, and the Banff Centre.

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Over the past three decades, primarily in London, Portugal and Amsterdam, Dr Jorge Balça
has developed a strong portfolio of work and a unique combination of skillsets – as a stage
director (of theatre, opera, and hybrid forms), a teacher and workshop leader, a presentation
skills, acting and creativity coach, and practice-based researcher. His work in all these
domains is distinguished by his commitment to and skill in making fantasy and invention
emerge from precise knowledge and training – and by his ability to inspire a similar alchemy
in his collaborators.

Classically trained as an actor and countertenor, he studied theatre directing in London and
Moscow, specialising in Shakespeare, techniques of adaptation, Meyerhold and commedia
dell’arte. Jorge also holds a PhD exploring the dramatic training of opera performers.
With a love for site-specific projects and collaborative forms, and an equal flair for comedy
and drama, his work is dramaturgically inventive, visually striking, and physically engaged.
He was the artistic director of Bloomsbury Opera and associate director of The Opera
Makers, both in London. In Portugal, he has recently directed L’Heure Espagnole and The
Turn of the Screw at Centro Cultural de Belém, and Don Giovanni and La Voix Humaine at
Festival de Ópera de Óbidos.

Jorge is committed to his work as a teacher, having taught at the Dutch National Opera
Academy, Morley College London, Universidade de Évora and other institutions. He
maintains an international coaching private practice and is the acting coach at the Neil
Semer Vocal Institute in Italy.

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