PAULO PORTO ALEGRE

Porto Alegre had as his teachers some of the most important guitar players of our era, such as Isaías Sávio, Henrique Pinto and Abel Carlevaro. He participated first as a stock-broker and then as a teacher at Campos do Jordão, Londrina, Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Belém, Natal, Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Campo Grande, Goiânia, Fortaleza and Terezina Music Festivals, among others.

He studied Musical Composition with the teacher Sérgio Vasconcelos Corrêa and Musical Analysis with H. J. Koellreuter, Phillipe Manoury, Fábio Mechetti and Oswaldo Colarusso. As soloist and chamber music performer, has been acting in Brazil and abroad, playing also with the main Brazilian Orchestras.

He was the first Brazilian player to win the first prize at V International Guitar Contest Palestrina (1979) and at III International Guitar Contest of Villa-Lobos Festival (1984). In 1986 he was one of the winners of the II Eldorado Music Reward and 1º Citation of the XXVI ORFT International Composition Contest (Paris) with the piece Contrastes I.

In 1988 he was the single Brazilian representative at the I IDRIART International Festival of Classical Music of Pequim (China); he acted at this festival as teacher, soloist and chamber music performer (with Kodaly Quartet). In 1992 he did a solo tour across Europe, performing in 16 recitals in Germany and France.

Paulo Porto Alegre is a remarkable music arranger (with over five hundred arrangements) and composer; this activity gained importance at last years, since his opus was published at Germany. He has recorded four albums: "Trio Opus Doze" (Guitar Trio - 1983), "Villa Lobos Festival 1984" (Concert for Guitar and Orchestra by Villa Lobos), "A Queda dos Pássaros" (XX Century Music solo- 1997), "Trio" (Romantic Pieces for Flute, Viola and Guitar - 1997) and Quaternaglia's "Forrobodó" (2000).

Some important composers such as Aylton Escobar, Souza Lima, Raul do Valle, Radamés Gnatalli, Guido Santorsola, Sérgio Vasconcelos Corrêa and Sérgio Assad dedicated pieces to him. He was the artistic coordinator of the Guitar Seminar of the Campos do Jordão Winter Festival (1994/5) and curator of SESC Guitar Festival in 1996. He was a Quaternaglia member from June of 1999 to June 2002.