Biography

João LIMA DUQUE (Lisbon – 1980, lives and works in Berlin).

Born into an artistic family, pianist João Lima Duque began his music studies at the age of four. Having completed the piano studies at the Portuguese National Conservatoire with High Distinction (studying with Cândida Matos, Raquel Correia and António Rosa, amongst others), he won the first prize in the Algarve Competition of Music Academies for three successive years. Graduated with Honours on his BMus in Performance at the Esart College studying with Professor Dr Caio Pagano and at Belgais Centre, mentored by Maria João Pires and others.

After graduation he went to study in Cologne, focusing in piano New Music at the Musikhochschule Köln, Germany, with pianist Paulo Álvares support by the EU ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’ scholarship. João was also a scholar at Trinity College of Music, London (now Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance) from 2005 to 2009 where he completed a Postgraduate Diploma and the Masters Degree with Distinction with Yonty Solomon and Martino Tirimo, both in Performance. He was awarded the FCT Doctoral Scholarship from the Portuguese Government and the EU for his ASSAULT project at TLCMD, working alongside with Canadian pianist and composer Douglas Finch and Head of Research, Dr Jonathan Owen Clark. He took part in Masterclasses with several renowned pianists, namely Maria João Pires, Dimitri Alexeev, Pedro Burmester, Murray McLaghlan, Helena Sá e Costa and Paul Badura-Skoda.

He was a semi-finalist at the International YCAT auditions (2006) and finalist at the Alfred Kitchin Piano Competition (2008) and has been performing solo and chamber music throughout Europe. Public appearances highlights in the UK include: Mozart Piano Concerto K.595 at the Reform Club; R. Stevenson 1st Piano Concerto for the Stevenson Society; ‘New Quays’ series; Rzweski Festival; his Solo Piano Series (SPS’06) at St. Lawrence Jewry (City of London) and The Cathedral of The Isles (Scotland); solo recitals at McLarren Hall and St Martin-in-the-Fields.

His long-term collaborative project ASSAULT includes solo and group performances at the Royal Albert Hall (additionally funded by the Arts Council England), Gulbenkian Foundation HQ, the MAS museum and the Concertgebouw.

Lima Duque is particularly interested in questioning the norms of classical music performance practice and crossovers with contemporary art and performative discourses, through film and live concerts. His repertoire attention is widely dedicated to Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Scriabin plus contemporary and living composers.