Francisca Galante

Francisca Barradas Vaz Galante was born on the 10th of may of 2003. She began her musical studies at the age of 3 and was admitted at the Escola Artística de Música do Conservatório Nacional at the age of 6, in the viola class of Isabel Pimentel. In 2020, she was admitted on the class of Francien Schatborn at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.
Regarding her orchestral experience, she took part in several youth orchestras such as Orquestra Sinfónica Juvenil (Youth Symphonic Orchestra), under the baton of Christopher Bochmann and Jovem Orquestra Portuguesa (Youth Portuguese Orchestra) with the conductor Pedro Carneiro, which whom made international tours in 2019, playing in important european festivals and well-known concert halls, such as Berlin Konzerthaus (Young Euro Festival) and Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest (Vară Magică Festival). In the same year, she participated in the first edition of Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Young, having the role of co-section leader, and working with the conductors James Ross e Pablo Heras-Casado. Together with RCO Young, she had the opportunity of playing at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in the Flagey Concert Hall in Brussels. In 2023, Francisca participated in the wintertour of Nationaal Jeugdorkest (National Youth Orchestra of the Netherlands) under the baton of Anthony Hermus playing in several concert halls in the Netherlands.
Besides orchestral experience, she was a member, from 2010 to 2018, in Coro Infanto-Juvenil da Universidade de Lisboa, a youth choir conducted by Erica Mandillo. This choir had several collaborations with Orquestra Gulbenkian.
Since the beginning of her studies, she made several masterclasses and had lessons with musicians such as Nobuko Imai, Gerard Caussé, Ana Bela Chaves, Louise Lansdown, Marc Sabbah, Samuel Barsegian, Francien Schatborn, Veit Hertenstein, António Pereira, Frederik Boits, Martina Forni, Lilli Maijala and Daniel Bard. Regarding chamber music she worked with Robert Kulek, Peter Brunt, Dmitri Ferschtman, Johannes Leertouwer, Luís André Ferreira, Olivier Thiery, Anna Tomasik, Guus Jeukendrup, David Kuyken, Frank van de Laar, Harmen de Boer and Sven Arne Tepl.
Francisca was awarded with the first prize in several national and international competitions, such as: “Concurso Nacional de Cordas Vasco Barbosa” (2017), in which she had the opportunity to play solo with the Camerata Atlântica in a live broadcasted recital by the portuguese radio, Antena 2; “IMKA Internet Music Competition” (2017); “Concurso Nacional Cidade de Montijo” (2018); “The North International Music Competition” (2018) and “Prémio Ilda Moura” (2019). Still in 2019, was awarded with the third prize in the competition “JOVEM.COM”. In 2021, Francisca received the second prize in the “Prinses Christina Concours” and the JON prize, a prize to play solo with the JON orchestra. She received the first prize in the “Concurso Nacional de Cordas Vasco Barbosa”, having the opportunity of playing again solo with the orchestra “Camerata Atlântica” and the first prize in the dutch competition “Britten Concours”, playing solo with the Britten Youth Orchestra.
Francisca also participated in chamber music competitions, and in 2017 her chamber music group was awarded with the first prize in the competition “JOVEM.COM”.
In august 2021, Francisca was invited to perform in the “Oranjewoud” festival playing along with Matthieu van Bellen, Maria Milstein, Gideon den Herder and Hanna Shybayeva.
In September the same year, Francisca played in the program broadcasted by NPO Radio 4 (dutch radio), presented by Hans van den Boom, in Spiegezaal in Concertgebouw.
In the spring of 2022, by participating in the masterclass Stift Festival (a prize from Britten Concours), she had the opportunity of playing chamber music along with Daniel Rowland and Maja Bogdanovic. In the summer of the same year she participated in the Amsterdam Doktet Tour in Portugal. This tour was ogranised by Francisca and Jasmim Mandillo.
In 2022 she participated in two projects with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, playing in TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht and in Royal Concertgebow in Amsterdam under the direction of Karina Canellakis.
In december 2022 and january 2023, Francisca was the soloist together with the violinist Iris van Nuland of the JON's wintertour. This tour counted with several concerts in the Netherlands playing Britten’s double concerto for violin, viola and orchestra with the conductor Jurjen Hempel.
Currently she plays in the Otilka String Quartet with Iris van Nuland, Lucien Renette and Job Huiskamp. Recently they have played in the NPO Klassiek (Dutch Radio for Classical Music) in the programme De Muziekfabriek.