Heloísa Fernandes Quartet

Brazilian pianist and composer Heloísa Fernandes was born in the city of Presidente Prudente, São Paulo, and took up the piano at age four. She went on to study with Paulo Gori and Gilberto Tinetti, with whom she cultivated her taste for classical music, and graduated in piano performance from the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo. She also studied conducting at the Centro de Estudos Musicais Tom Jobim and composition at the University of São Paulo. 

Her compositions and arrangements reflect her interests in literature, poetry, nature, classical, jazz, and Brazilian music. Strong and original, ancient and modern, her sublime creations blossom with rhythmic vitality and melodic delicacy. With her skill as an improviser, she searches the music's emotional depths and soars with joy. “Fernandes is beyond categorization,” wrote the Post and Courier of her U.S. debut. “She is herself, and I’ll always be interested in any music she cares to explore.”

The rest of her quartet is Toninho Carrasqueira (flute), Sidiel Vieira (bass), and Ari Colares (percussion).

Funders

The MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas concert series is made possible by the generous support of Presenting Sponsor MetLife Foundation. 

The 2024–2025 series is also supported, in part, by the Howard Gilman Foundation, Augustine Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Mex-Am Cultural Foundation, Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, and Mid Atlantic Arts.