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Details as performer
 Born in Porto, in 1983, Daniel Moreira holds a B.A. in Economics (Faculty of Economics, University of Porto; 2006) and a M.A. in Music Theory and Composition (Higher School of Music, Arts and Performance, Polytechnic Institute of Porto – ESMAE/IPP; 2010). At present, he is a PhD candidate in Music Composition at King's College, University of London (2012—), working under the supervision of George Benjamin and Silvina Milstein.

His main teachers have been João-Heitor Rigaud, Dimitris Andrikopoulos, Fernando Lapa and George Benjamin (composition); Miguel Ribeiro-Pereira, José Oliveira Martins and Silvina Milstein (music theory and analysis); and Carlos Guedes (electronic music). He also attended seminars and had occasional one-to-one classes with Klaas de Vries, Helmut Lachenmann, Magnus Lindberg, Jonathan Harvey and Kaija Saariaho, and he actively participated in workshops with the Remix Ensemble, Diotima Quartet, Lontano Ensemble and Gulbenkain Orchestra.

Daniel Moreira's activity as a composer embraces multiple genres and formats, including orchestral, chamber, ensemble and vocal music. In 2015, he widened this scope to stage music, as he composed his first opera; and in 2016 he will compose his first film soundtrack.



His recent music reveals a special interest in the polyphonic interaction between layers of contrasting musical materials, each one of them characterized by a specific musical profile which suggests a given psychological or character type. This approach is often combined with references to film and literature, and, in fact, most of his recent works are vocal ones, setting (mostly) Portuguese poetry from a variety of widely divergent sources, including renaissance as well as contemporary, art as well as popular poetry.

Harmonically, his compositions adhere to a sort of ‘third way’, rejecting both the uncompromising harshness of extreme atonality as well as naive attempts to restore old-style tonality. More than simply finding a middle ground between those two extreme positions, however, they explore a broad range of harmonies, from the more consonant (or diatonic) to more dissonant (or chromatic).

His music has been commissioned, among others, by Casa da Música, Festival Musica Strasbourg, European Concert Hall Organisation, Chester&Novello, Banda Sinfónica Portuguesa, Movimento Patrimonial para a Música Portuguesa and Antena 2/RDP, and is performed in Portugal and elsewhere in Europe (Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, 2009; Festival Musica Strasbourg, 2010 and 2012; Cycle Guerre et Paix, Cité de la Musique/Paris, 2014; etc.). In 2015, he was selected to participate in the "LSO Panufnik Scheme", a year-long workshop with the London Symphony Orchestra, which culminated in the public presentation of a new piece for orchestra (LSO St. Luke's, London, March 2016).

Apart from several awards in international composition competitions (3rd Prize in the International Composition Competition Gian Battista Viotti, 2007; Honorable Mention in the 3rd International Composition Competition at Póvoa de Varzim, 2008; 2nd Prize in the 1st International Composition Competition GMCL/Jorge Peixinho, 2014), he was also awarded a Young Composer-in-Residence at Casa da Música (in 2009) and he represented Portugal at the UNESCO International Composer's Tribune (in 2010).

Since 2009, he has been teaching music composition, analysis and aesthetics at ESMAE/IPP, and he has been a researcher at CITAR/Catholic University of Portugal since 2014. He is also active as a music theorist, having presented his analytical work at the European Music Analysis Conference (Leuven, Belgium, 2014), Keele Music Analysis Conference (Keele, UK, 2015) and ENIM (Cascais, 2013; Lisboa, 2014; Évora, 2015),.

He works frequently with Casa da Música, writing programme notes, speaking in pre-concert talks and introduced concerts and presenting short courses for a non-specialized audience.

He has been a chorister at Coral de Letras da Universidade do Porto since 2004.