Career and training
The performer
Amadeu de Oliveira was born in Spain and comes from Santa Maria da Feira, Portugal. He holds a degree from the Badajoz conservatory and performs as soloist, in chamber music and with orchestra, in a repertoire that runs from Bach to the contemporary and includes opera and fado. He speaks Portuguese, Spanish, French and English.
Training
The three schools that shape the hand
A pianistic school is not a style: it is a way of solving physical problems at the keyboard, handed from teacher to student across generations. Amadeu de Oliveira was trained in three, and it is that sum that defines the sound.
- Russian schoolArm weight and a full tone. It gives control of large dynamics — the ability to fill a church nave without forcing the instrument.
- Spanish schoolArticulation and dance rhythm. It is the natural access to Soler, Scarlatti and the Fandango, which ask for rhythmic clarity before they ask for virtuosity.
- Franco-Polish schoolColour and pedal. It gives Debussy, Fauré and Chopin — and the ear for what each room's acoustic sends back.
Repertoire
Why the Iberian keyboard sits at the centre
There is an entire repertoire written fifty kilometres from where I teach, and it is almost never played. That is not academic curiosity — it is our own keyboard history.Amadeu de Oliveira
Domenico Scarlatti wrote most of his 555 sonatas in the service of the Iberian court. Antonio Soler was his student at El Escorial. Carlos Seixas is the greatest Portuguese keyboard composer of the eighteenth century. Together they form a body of work written in the Peninsula, played by very few, and recognisable from the first bar.
That is the project 'Os 3 S Ibéricos'. For a programmer, it is an argument of rarity. For anyone organising a celebration, it is the difference between music that is heard and music somebody still remembers a week later.
Fact sheet
Verifiable facts
Contact
For programming, press or a celebration
The shortest route is the proposal request: answered within 48 working hours, with repertoire and ensemble already chosen.