Biography
A pianist, composer, and educator of Brazilian origin, Maria Inês Guimarães has earned recognition through her extensive discography devoted to works by composers from her homeland. Esteemed equally as a musicologist, she reassembled a notable body of pieces by Lobo de Mesquita, the Brazilian creator active during the eighteenth century. Born in Uberaba, Brazil, in 1959, she launched her musical studies at the Instituto Musical Uberabense. Following her 1978 graduation she worked with Eudoxia de Barros and Magda Tagliaferro before attending the University of São Paulo between 1984 and 1987. In 1988 she moved to Paris and enrolled at the Paris Normal School of Music, where Harry Swift, Jean-Marie Machado, and Bruno Wilhelm instructed her in improvisation while Anna-Stella Schic and Francoise Parrot-Hanlet guided her piano work. Her first recording, Alma Brasileira, appeared in 1993 and drew warm critical response; Nepomuceno: Piano Works followed in 1994 and Henrique Oswald: Piano Music in 1995. Pursuing deeper specialization, she completed a doctorate in musicology at Sorbonne University, Paris, in 1996, supervised by Edith Weber, Serge Gut, and Nicolas Meeus. The dissertation, centered on Lobo de Mesquita, prompted her reconstruction of his Dominica in Palmis, later recorded by Musica Antiqua and the Henri Duparc Choir. Since 1999 she has served as professor of piano and free improvisation at the Conservatoire d’Antony in France. She entered the Paris Choro Club in 2001 and founded the annual Festival International de Choro in 2005; around the same period she issued several volumes of original pieces, transcriptions, and teaching materials, among them Danses et oiseaux du Brésil in 2003. Performance activities include the choro groups Ilustrando o CHORO, Duo Asymétrie alongside Brenda Ohana, and the Choro Quartet with Paul Mindy, Bruno Wilhelm, and Dominique Muzeau. From 2012 onward she has supplied incidental scores for the children’s theater Compagnie Le Feu Follet. Further releases comprise Norte e Sul with the Choro Quartet in 2014, Contrepoint: Villa-Lobos, Kurtag in 2018, and Ruídos de Costura in 2024. She continues to balance her duties as professor, performer, and artistic director of the Choro Festival.
Albums
Singles
