João Gouveia Paes - conductor and cellist - born in Portugal in 1989. He began his musical studies at the early age of 5 back in Lisbon. It was there that he had a great deal of his musical development, which lead him to conclude his bachelor degree in cello at National Academy of Advanced Orchestral Studies (ANSO), under the tuition of the renowned Portuguese cellist Paulo Gaio Lima.

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João then proceeded further with his studies with a master’s degree in cello performance at the Malmö Academy of Music, where he learned from two main references of cello playing in Sweden – Mats Rondin and Torleif Thedéen.

In masterclasses and other courses, he sought the knowledge of various accomplished cellists such as Levon Mouradian, Clélia Vital, Viviane Spanoghe, Jeroen Reuling, François Guye, Márcio Carneiro, Samuli Örnströmer, John Ehde and Xavier Gagnepain.

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Over the course of the early career years, João had various different music performance experiences in a lot of different genres. He has played as a soloist with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Lisbon with cello concertos of Haydn and Dvorak. He was for over 4 years the principal cello of that same orchestra. Furthermore, João is also a very active and engaged chamber musician with several different groups, having won the Gilberta Paiva Chamber Music Competition in 2013 as a member of the string quartet Quarteto CM.

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Hand in hand with his career as a cellist, João has endeavored into the field of orchestra and choir conducting. He has taken masterclasses and mentorship with the highly experienced conductors Jean Sebatien Béreau , Kirk Trevor, Jean-Marc Burfin, Diane Wittry, Filipe Carvalheiro, Morten Ryelund, Frans Rasmussen, Norbert Baxa and Martin Åkerwall.  He completed an Orchestra Conducting course at Lund University, under the guidance of Patrik Andersson, followed by a Master’s Degree in Ensemble Conducting at The Royal Danish Academy of Music, under the tuition of Jørgen Fuglebæk. He is now continuing his studies in Orchestra Conducting at the National Academy of Advanced Orchestral Studies in Lisbon, under the guidance of Jean-Marc Burfin.

From 2014 to 2015, João was the principal conductor of Culpakören (Lund, Sweden), and from 2017 to 2019 with the chamber choir Jægerspriskoret (Frederikssund, Denmark). Between 2017 and 2021 he was the chief conductor for Aavaat – the Greenlandic choir in Copenhagen, known for participating every year in the broadcast TV show Julehilsen til Grønland, on the Danish National Radio. Since early 2019, he has been working regularly as Guest Conductor with the city community orchestra Christianstads Symfoniker in Kristianstad, Sweden. Furthermore, he has conducted orchestras around Europe, such as the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra, the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra and the North Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

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As founding member of the band Penicos de Prata, João explored a big mix of musical genres, improvisation and theatrical performance, which lead to the release of their first album (Música e Poesia Erótica e Satírica Portuguesa; 2013) with great critical acclaim.

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