Born in 1974, Pedro Sousa Silva studied the recorder with Pedro Couto Soares at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (1992-1996), Reine-Marie Verhagen at Utrecht Conservatory (1994) and Pedro Memesldorff at Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano (1996-2000). After musicology studies at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (1999-2000), where he was tutored by Manuel Pedro Ferreira, he obtained in 2010 the title of Doctor in Music at Universidade de Aveiro, with a thesis that discusses the interaction between practice and theory in the performance of renaissance polyphony.

As a musician, he has an intensive artistic career in the field of renaissance and baroque performance, having performed around 200 times, both as a recorder player and musical director, in countless venues and early music festivals in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Brazil. He has collaborated with world renowned early- music musicians such as Amandine Beyer, Enrico Onofri, Riccardo Minasi, Jill Feldman and Laurence Cummings.

As a musical director and researcher, Pedro has been focused primarily on the rescue and promotion of Portuguese musical heritage from the 16th and 17th centuries. With his ensembles A Imagem da Melancolia and Arte Minima, Pedro was responsible for the first modern performance or recording of works by Pedro de Cristo, Estevão Lopes Morago, Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, Pedro da Esperança and Pedro de Araújo, as well as works by many anonymous composers (as most works from that period had an anonymous attribution).

Pedro has been a music teacher since 1992, teaching full time at ESMAE, where he is currently Coordinator Professor. He was jointly responsible for the creation of ESMAE’s Early Music Department in 2005 and responsible for the creation of the Post-Graduate Polyphonia course in 2018. Both as a recorder teacher and an expert in the performance of renaissance polyphony, he has been invited by some of the most prestigious music institutions to give lectures and masterclasses (including Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Joseph Haydn Konservatorium, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, Norges Musikkhøgskole, Akademie für Alte Musik Bremen, Hochschule für Musik Trossingen and Universidade Estadual de São Paulo).

Pedro is also an Integrated Researcher at CESEM, in the Early Music Studies group, where he is especially concerned with the dialogue between theory and practice in the renaissance.

Irene Brigitte Puzzo (born in Trieste in 1989) completed her Master's Degree in Renaissance and Baroque Singing at the 'Arrigo Pedrollo' Conservatory in Vicenza with Gemma Bertagnolli. Currently, she is enrolled in the Artistic Studies PhD program at the University of Coimbra, focusing on 16th-century sung poetry in Portuguese. Irene Brigitte Puzzo started her discographic activity in 2008, participating in various projects. In the realm of Early Music, her discography includes two albums with Arte Minima Ensemble, "Francisco de Santa Maria: Missa 'O Beata Maria'" (Pan Classics, 2023) and "In splendoribus" (2021), the album "Royne des fleurs" with the ensemble Sesquialtera commissioned for the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference 2021, and the critical edition of Du Fay's medieval mass "Se la face ay pale," directed by Claudia Caffagni (2017, Amadeus). Irene Brigitte Puzzo has expanded her Early Music studies by participating in numerous masterclasses led by notable figures such as Claudia Caffagni, Christian Hilz, Maria Cristina Kiehr, Emma Kirkby, Roberta Invernizzi, and Lia Serafini, among others. She has performed as both a soloist and chorister in prestigious European venues, including Milan's Cathedral, the Olympic Theatre of Vicenza, Teatro Dal Verme, and Casa da Música of Porto.

Countertenor David Hackston began his musical studies in Bradford-on-Avon, England, and undertook voice studies in early music at Helsinki Metropolia University and ESMAE in Porto, Portugal. He is a core member of Helsinki Chamber Choir and sings in numerous ensembles exploring polyphony from the 14th century onwards. Alongside the standard Baroque oratorios, David has sung the role of Ottone in Monteverdi’s Il Coronazione di Poppea (Helsinki 2017). David has a particular interest in 16th-century Portuguese polyphony, music that he regularly performs and records with the Porto-based Arte Minima, and he has produced modern editions of several anonymous manuscripts. 

 David is an avid performer of contemporary music and has sung numerous 20th-century classics including works by Messiaen, Xenakis, Furrer, Sciarrino, Haapamäki, et al. In 2022 he recorded the countertenor role in Kaija Saariaho’s Écho! for BIS and gave the premiere performance of Eugene Birman’s Os dias mais longos e os mais curtos in Lisbon. Over the years, David has given numerous performances of Peter Maxwell Davies’s iconic Eight Songs for a Mad King. He sang the role of K in the long-awaited première performance of Juhani Nuorvala’s Flash Flash (Helsinki 2019), an opera in extended just intonation about the life and death of Andy Warhol. He has performed the role of Triplet 1 in James Macmillan’s chamber opera Clemency (Tallinn 2019/2023) and created the role of Reader 1, written in Cantonese, in minn[i]e by Tze Yeung Ho (Tallinn 2021). 

Nuno de Mendonça Raimundo is a tenor and researcher at the Centre for the Study of Sociology and Musical Aesthetics (CESEM) of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences of the Nova University of Lisbon, where he also teaches as invited lecturer. He is currently undergoing his doctorate in historical musicology at the same university. As a musician, he studied singing under Armando Possante and completed a postgraduate course in Advanced Polyphony Studies at the Porto School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE). He is a regular member of the Renaissance music ensemble Arte Minima, directed by Pedro Sousa Silva, with whom he recorded the albums In Splendoribus (2021) and Missa O Beata Maria (2023). He is also a member of the Gulbenkian Choir (Lisbon), and has collaborated with other renowned Portuguese ensembles, such as Grupo Vocal Olisipo (directed by Armando Possante), Capela Joanina (directed by João Janeiro), Polyphonos (directed by José Bruto da Costa), Bando de Surunyo (directed by Hugo Sanches), Cappella dei Signori (directed by Ricardo Bernardes) and Capella Duriensis (directed by Jonathan Ayerst).

The lute player and tenor Portuguese Ricardo Leitão Pedro is one of the few musicians today dedicated to the historical practice of "canto al liuto", accompanying himself with different old plucked string instruments. 

Born in Porto in 1990, he took up the lute at the age of eighteen inspired by a concerto by Hesperion XXI and encouraged by the then classical guitar teacher Pedro Fesch. A year later he was accepted into the degree in early music at ESMAE (Porto, Portugal), during which he received an Erasmus scholarship to study at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Lyon in the class of Eugène Ferré.

In 2013, she moved to Switzerland to study at the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she completed a degree in medieval and Renaissance lutes with Crawford Young and Marc Lewon and is currently completing a master's degree in singing in the class of Dominique Vellard.

Privately, he has worked with singers such as Margreet Honig, Gerd Türk and Patrizia Bovi and lutists such as Paul O'Dette, Hopkinson Smith, Eduardo Egüez and Rolf Lislevand.

Member of the ensembles Concerto di Margherita (ensemble EEEmerging 2017-2018) and I Discordanti (ensemble EEEmerging 2016) with which he maintains a busy schedule on the European stages, he is regularly invited to collaborate with different ensembles and orchestras as a singer and lute player (Orquestra XXI, Coro Casa da Música, Capella Sanctae Crucis, Troxalida, Agamnon, La Boz Galana, Domus Artis).

In duo with lute player Guilherme Barroso, he won the 2nd prize (1st not awarded) of the JIMA competition (Oeiras, Portugal) in the chamber music category.

Eager for contact with other creative expressions, he maintains the habit of improvising with contemporary dance and circus artists.

He composed the theme for the trapeze solo Planisphere, presented at the FIS in Póvoa do Varzim, and was the musician selected by Rostislav Novak (La Putyka) for his working group at the contemporary circus festival Die Originale, framed in the Berliner Festspiele. Also invested in musicological research from the performer's point of view, he is currently preparing the edition of the songs and instrumental pieces of the manuscript Thibault (F-Pn Rés. Vmd ms. 27) for the Basel-based label Terem-Music.

Luís Neiva, bass-baritone, began his training at the Conservatory of Music of Porto in 2009. He has a degree in Singing from ESMAE (Porto), completed a Post-Graduation in Advanced Studies in Polyphony at the same institution and is currently attending the Master's Degree in Advanced Studies in Vocal Ensemble and the Master's Degree in Interpretation of Early Music (Renaissance – Romantic), both at the renowned Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

From his activity as an ensemble musician, and in particular in the area of early music, the collaborations with the Gulbenkian Choir, Arte Mínima, Capella Sanctae Crucis, Concert de la Reine, thélème, Accademia Barroca Lucernensis, among others, stand out.

Over the years, she has seen her work enriched by regular collaborations with important conductors such as Pedro Sousa e Silva, Michel Corboz, Lorenzo Viotti, António Saiote, and experienced singing teachers, namely Rosa Dominguez, Lisandro Abadie, Sara Braga Simões, Rui Taveira, Pierre Mak and Cecília Fontes.

A Portuguese recorder player, he began his musical studies at the Coimbra Conservatory of Music. In 2021 he completed his degree in Early Music at the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo (Porto, PT) with Pedro Sousa Silva and he is currently completing his maste degree with Corina Marti at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Basel, CH), specialising in Medieval and Renaissance music. He regularly performs in concerts and has extensive experience on various European stages and festivals, having collaborated with various ensembles, such as the Aut Tace orchestra (directed by Pedro Sousa Silva, Pontevedra 2018), Jovem Orquestra Portuguesa (directed by Pedro Carneiro, Lisbon 2020), Mundus Inversus (Musikfestspiele Potsdam 2022; I festival of early music Grajal de Campos, León, 2023). More recently, he has been an active member of the ensemble Arte Minima (PT), a group directed by Pedro Sousa Silva with a special focus on disseminating the Portuguese Renaissance repertoire, with two discs already released (In splendoribus, 2021, and O Beata Maria, 2023) and several concerts in Portugal, and the ensemble FOWR (CH), a recorder consort under the direction of Corina Marti founded in 2023, with a particular focus on repertoires from the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, having already given several concerts at the Polish early music festival Muzyka w Raju and at the Filharmonia Narodowa.

Carlos Sánchez Leonardo was born in Madrid in 1993. He is a recorder and cornetto player. He has a bachelor's degree in Historical Performance at Porto’s School of Music and the Performing Arts (ESMAE), a master’s degree in Historical Musicology at La Rioja University. His master thesis studies the possibility of using historical 

temperaments and tuning in the construction of rhetorical discourse. He also has a master's degree in Historical Performance at ESMAE, for that Project he had a research fellowship at the CESEM, that consisted in developing an aural methodology for the study of Renaissance polyphony, based in historical models, with the aim of creating a Historical Informed Performer. He is currently attending the PhD program at Universidad de La Rioja and the artistic residency “Towards an Anthology of  Portuguese Renaissance Music”, a project organized by CESEM.P.Porto and funded by the EU-Creative Europe program. 

João Francisco Távora has a Master degree in Early Music from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“, in Leipzig, in the class of professor Robert Ehrlich, and a bachelor degree from the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo, Porto, in the class of Professor Pedro Sousa Silva. He is currently doing the "Meisterklasse" course in Early Music at the HMT Leipzig. He collaborates with the Gewandhausorchester (Leipzig), the ensemble Arte Minima, an ensemble specializing in Portuguese Renaissance music, and the Lachrymae Ensemble (Leipzig). With the Arte Minima ensemble he participated in the recording of several albums, with music by Francisco de Santa Maria and Vicente Lusitano. In 2023 João recorded his first solo album, dedicated to recorder music by G. P. Telemann and in August 2024 he will record the second album dedicated to transcriptions of J. S. Bach's pieces for recorder. He is co-artistic director and founding member of the Musurgia Ensemble, an ensemble dedicated to the interpretation and dissemination of Portuguese and European music from the 16th to 18th centuries. In 2025, Musurgia Ensemble is preparing two recording projects: “Ad vesperas - music for the solemn Vespers of Corpus Christi”, in partnership with Quarto Tom Ensemble, and the project "Portuguese and Franco-Flemish music for recorder consort".

After a degree in clarinet at the Bruno Maderna Conservatory (2015), in Italy, under the guidance of Professor Piero Vincenti, Silvia Cortini completed her Master's Degree in Performance and Artistic Interpretation in clarinet António Saiote at the School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE), under the guidance of Professor (2018). 

The realization of a thesis that proposes arrangements for clarinet quartet of Antonio Vivaldi's concertos led her to approach the universe of early music and historically informed interpretation. She joined the Bachelor’s Degree in Early Music at ESMAE in the recorder class (Porto), which she completed in 2022 under the guidance of Pedro Sousa Silva. At the same time, in 2020 she completed the “Master di I Livello” in “Metodologie socio-pedagogiche negli insegnamenti artistici-musicali" at the Italian university "Dante Alighieri”. 

She performs regularly on stage, highlighting the concerts with the Fiorentina Camera Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Giuseppe Lanzetta in 2015, with the Principe de Asturias Clarinet Orchestra founded and conducted by Maestro António Saiote (2015-2018), collaboration with the Gulbenkian Orchestra (2018) under the direction of Maestro Dietrich Paredes on a tour at Casa da Música,  Aveiro Theatre, Alcobaça Monastery and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. 

In the same year, she was part of several contemporary music projects with performances at the Rivoli theater and at the Helena Sá e Costa theater. 

In the context of early music, she has performed several concerts and the album Royne des Fleurs (2021) with Sesquialtera (ESMAE's Renaissance Ensemble), she collaborated with maestro Mário Mateus at the Gaia International Music Festival (2019), and she is part of the group Arte Minima (dir. Pedro Sousa Silva), with whom she recorded the album In Splendoribus (2021), the album "Missa O Beata Maria" published by Pan Classics in 2023, two albums of an integral dedicated to Vicente Lusitano (which will be released in 2024) and she is preparing the recording of the third album in July 2024. She is part of the Musurgia Ensemble, with whom she performs regularly in concerts and will record the album "Ad vesperas - music for the solemn Vespers of Corpus Christi" in 2025.  

In 2023/2024 she completed the "Music Business" course at Arda Academy (Porto).  

Executive Secretary of the CESEM Board of Directors since January 2015; Coordinator of the Early Music Studies Research Group, including the supervision of the Thematic Line Paleography and Music Publishing and LAPEM, since March 2014; FCT Researcher affiliated to NOVA FCSH, since September 2013; An integrated member of CESEM since January 2009.

Co-General Editor of the Portuguese Journal of Musicology, 2012-2015, and Editor, 1996-1998; FCT Postdoctoral Fellow at CESEM, February 1, 2010-September 1, 2013; Assistant Professor, University of Évora, School of Arts, Department of Music, March 17, 2006- June 4, 2011;

Coordinator of the Research Unit in Music and Musicology, University of Évora, February 2007-January 2009; Member of the Centre for Art History of the University of Évora, July 2000-February 2007; Visiting Professor, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, ESMAE, Department of Early Music, October 2005-June 2006; Full-time Guest Lecturer, University of Évora, Department of Music, November 17, 1997-March 16, 2006; Commissioner for the installation of the National Museum of Music, Lisbon '94 Society, 1993-1994; Head of the Music Area of the National Library of Portugal, March 13, 1991-November 16, 1997.

PhD in Music and Musicology, University of Évora, with the maximum mention "Approved with Distinction and Praise" unanimously, March 16, 2006.

Tomás Quintais is a Portuguese music producer and sound artist. He has studied Music Technologies at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and completed his Master Degree in Sound Arts and Technologies at the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo, Porto. Tomás is currently pursuing a Doctoral Program in Artistic Creation, in collaboration with the University of Aveiro and the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. 

In the fields of soundscapes and installations, he has promoted an artistic collection aproaching themes across acoustemology, such as time, place and memory, which includes the pieces "Actants", "Passaggio" and "Cantus Discantus", the latter of which was presented in October 2021 at the Semibreve Festival in Braga. He also took part in the edition "Dar a Ouvir: Paisagens Sonoras da Cidade 2022", promoting works in public spaces such as the Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra, with "Moraceae Echoscapes" (2021). 

As a music producer, he has collaborated with various national and international institutions, promoting contemporary and experimental music, as part of collectives such as the European Shakuhachi Society, the Lisboa Soa Festival, CESEM-IPP and Arte no Tempo.  

In 2022, he founded the 'neper music' label, dedicated to the production and promotion of contemporary notated and improvised music. 

Higher education teacher, sound designer and audio technician, Marco Conceição was born in Toronto, Canada in 1977. He completed his PhD in Spatial Audio and Surround Sound at Trinity College Dublin under the supervision of Dermot Furlong. He has collaborated with several composers, directors and musicians such as Dimitrios Andrikopolous, Jonathan Nangel, Kevin Volans, José Miguel Moreira, Filipe Martins, Nuno Rocha, Jorge Campos, Fernando Ramos, Rui Penha among others, both as a sound designer and as an audio technician. He has a great interest in capturing soundscapes and field recordings, with special attention to capturing them immersively and surroundly. In recent years he has dedicated himself to the exploration and development of methods for sound spatialization, relating spatialization with sound design. He has had a regular activity in teaching multichannel audio content and post-production for both music and cinema, having been invited to lecture at different Portuguese higher education institutions (ESEC, DEI-UC, ESART). He is currently an Adjunct Professor at ESMAE, President of ESMAE, Director of Audiovisual Services at ESMAE and researcher at CESEM.