Ricardo Barros PhD.
One of the few specialists to conciliate an exuberant and passionate performance with an in-depth understanding of the Music & Dance panorama in the Baroque period. His musical and dance performances are dramatic and intense expressions of Passions.
Brazilian-Portuguese Ricardo was born in São Paulo and graduated with a BMus at UNICAMP, in the class of Dr Helena Jank.
In 1993 Ricardo was awarded a postgraduate scholarship from The British Council to study with Chris Kite and Neal Peres Da Costa (Harpsichord), and Madeleine Inglehearn (Early Dance) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London.
In 1996, he received a full postgraduate scholarship from CAPES (Brazilian Ministry of Education) to study with Laurence Cummings and Neal Peres Da Costa at the Royal Academy of Music, where he graduated in 1998.
Ricardo attended various master-classes with harpsichordists such as Jacques Ogg, Ketil Haugsand, Christophe Rousset, Kenneth Gilbert, Andreas Staier, Christopher Hogwood and William Christie.
He furthered his training as a Baroque Dancer with Christine Bayle (France), and also attended workshops with Jürgen Schrape (Germany) and Isabel Gonzaga (Portugal).
Ricardo had his harpsichord solo début during the 1994 Edinburgh Festival, playing the complete works for harpsichord by Pancrace Royer in the World famous 1769 Taskin harpsichord, at St Cecilia's Hall, The Russell Collection of Early Keyboard Instruments. Since then he has continually been invited to perform in that series.
He directs and performs with his innovative Mercurius Company in fully- and semi-staged concerts involving dancers, singers and instrumentalists, and also performs with flutist Lisete da Silva and cellist Nick Stringfellow in Spirituoso. He is in high demand for his directing, playing and dancing in concerts around Britain. Ricardo has performed for HRH Princess Alexandra, and also in Festivals in Europe and South America. He is a member of the EADH-European Association of Dance Historians.
Ricardo has recently concluded his PhD at the University of Hull under Professor Graham Sadler and Dr Caroline Wood researching 17th and 18th-century French stage dances in his thesis 'Dance as a discourse: the rhetorical expression of the passions in French Baroque dance'. Research interests also include the inheritance of 17th-century French and Iberian festivities in the contemporary Brazilian carnival parade. Ricardo regularly gives master-classes, summer courses, and lectures in Baroque Dance.
Dr Barros's recent engagements include academic activities such as presentation of a paper at the Annual Royal Music Association conference (Birmingham, November 2004); publication of a paper on the expression of passions in baroque dancé in Choreologica, the Journal of the European Association of Dance Historians (July 2005); organisation of a conference for the European Association of Dance Historians (York, October 2005); workshop in Baroque Dance, Gesture & Etiquette at the Handel House Museum, London (November 2005 and September 2006) and at the Wallace Collection, London (February 2006); presentation and publication of a paper in the Conference 'L'Italia e la Danza' (Rome, October 2006); presentation of papers in a conference in Leiden (October 2008) and Amsterdam (February 2009).
Ricardo was also involved in the organisation of a conference on 'Marie Sallé' in partnership with the EADH, Handel House Museum, Foundling Museum and Royal College of Music (London, November 2007), in which he premiéred his newly commissioned choreography for Rebel's Les Éléments.
Lastly, Ricardo recently featured in a video documentary about his work and research as an affiliated artist of the prestigious Wallace Collection London, in conjunction with the 'Creative Journeys' project involving the nine major museums in the UK, now online using our Film page
(Film page) or alternatively at
(www.vimeo.com)
Recent performing commitments include dance concerts with Mercurius Company at the Banqueting House's lunch time series (London, September 2005 and May 2006); dance concerts with Mercurius at the Wallace Collection in London (February 2006, February 2007 and February 2008); a Bach programme concert with Mercurius at the Queens' College Cambridge (June 2006); choreography and performance for a production of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas (August 2005) and Lampe's The Dragon of Wantley (August 2006) in Ross-on-Wye; concerts with Spirituoso at the Edinburgh Festival (August 2006) and Handel House Museum in London (August 2006 and January 2007); Royer harpsichord recital for the British Harpsichord Society (July 2005); concert of Medieval dances with Danςa Amorosa and acclaimed Les haulz et les bas of Switzerland in the Brighton Early Music Festival (October 2006); concert of Medieval dances with The Daughters of Elvin at Holywell Music Room in Oxford (March 2007); choreography and performance for Rameau's Dardanus with Ensemble Florilegium (dir. Ashley Solomon) at the Two Moors Festival (October 2007); movement coaching for a production of Handel's opera Rinaldo in Latvia in collaboration with Jane Gingell and Timedance (July 2008).
Future performing engagements include choreography and performance at 'Nox Illuminata Festival' in Basel (March 2009); choreography, production and performance with Mercurius Company of a Purcell programme for their début at the prestigious Cadogan Hall in London (September 2009); programme of Spanish dances with Mercurius at Leeds University (June 2009); gala concert with Mercurius with their Venetian Masquerade programme at Latvia Early Music Festival (Riga, July 2009); presentation of papers in conferences in London (Royal Academy of Music, May 2009) and Schwetzingen (Germany, October 2009); concerts with Spirituoso at Handel House throughout 2009 - including their Wigmore Hall début - and also in Lisbon (August 2009) and Edinburgh Festival (August 2009) amongst others.
His trio Spirituoso
(www.spirituoso.co.uk) has recently been appointed the ensemble-in-residence at Handel House Museum for 2009.
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