Who we are
AIXA FIGINI /director - voice
Aixa Figini is an Argentine singer, musicologist and producer. With a Degree in Musical Arts by the Universidad de Buenos Aires, she also studied in the ‘Escuela Argentina de Arte Contemporáneo’ and in the ‘Centro de Estudios de Música Contemporánea in Buenos Aires’. Later, interested in arts management and production she studied a Masters Degree in Arts Administration and Cultural Policies at Goldsmiths University of London. In Argentina she learned with voice teachers like Susana Rossi and Juan Carlos Cuacci, and studied african percussion and singing.
She worked as a singing and vocal technique teacher in Argentina for several years, where she also participated and developed various music projects as a singer in tango, Argentine folklore, Latin American music, and vocal improvisation. In 2012 she moved to London where she studied her masters degree. She worked in the management and production of festivals, orchestras and other music events, and developed artistic projects singing tango and Latin American music, with which she performed in different cultural spaces of the city, among them Southbank Centre.
Passionate about the multiple creative possibilities that music improvisation allows, she studied the music improvisation system Rhythm with Signs (Ritmo con Señas), created by Argentine percussionist Santiago Vazquez at CERPS (Centro de Estudios del Ritmo y Percusión con Señas, Argentina) and took part in several improvisation ensembles conducted with this system. She is a certified music trainer by Musicians without Borders, specialising in the utilisation of music as a tool for community building and social cohesion. She lives in Lisboa since 2018, where she currently works with different music projects as a musician, creator and producer. Among these, she founded and currently conducts the female vocal improvisation ensemble CIRCULAR, her Latin American music trio, and regularly leads vocal improvisation and community singing workshops.
NAZARÉ DA SILVA / voice
Nazaré da Silva was born on September 13, 1997, in Lisbon. Both her parents are musicians and the arts were present in her life from a very early age. She grew in love with music and theatre. Later, she started ballet and contemporary dance classes.
From 2004 to 2017 she studied vocal jazz at the Escola de Jazz Luiz Villas Boas (Hot Clube Portugal), and recently, in 2021, she finished her bachelor’s degree in ESML (Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa – Lisbon’s Superior School of Music), as a jazz vocalist. She has also had voice lessons with the singer Rita Maria.
As a singer, she recorded the album “Crime” with João Paulo Esteves da Silva (piano) and Samuel Dias (drums), “Vago Presentimento Azul por Cima”, album of songs by João Paulo Esteves da Silva for poems by Ana Paula Inácio, “O que Já Importa”, new album by guitarist Afonso Pais, and “Lumina”, album by Pedro Melo Alves Omniae Large Ensemble. She is also part of other projects, such as the vocal improvisation group “Circular” directed by Aixa Figini, “Biloba”, led by Francisco Nogueira, and the Nazaré da Silva quintet, with her original compositions, with João Almeida, Bernardo Tinoco, Zé Almeida and Samuel Dias, which with she released in 2021her debut album, “Gingko”.
CAMILA MASISO / voice
Camila Masiso is a Brazilian singer, currently living in Lisbon and doing her Masters in Jazz (voice/performan- ce) at the University of Évora. She has released two albums: Boas Novas (2011) and Patuá (2015), having performed in several countries such as France, Austria, Italy and the United States. She has shared the stage with world wide known artists such as Roberto Menescal, one of the founders of bossa nova, and the Mexican singer Julieta Venegas.
Camila is strongly influenced by northeastern regional music. The mixture of these roots with other rhythms such as bossa, samba, African music and jazz is the guiding thread that links the songs, lyrics and identity of the singer. Instrumentation is a striking feature of this musical proposal, in which the organic sound of each instrument is particularly important. Camila Masiso values simplicity, without giving up sophistication.
In October 2019 she was the winner of the Jazz Contest contest promoted by Portuguese radio Smooth FM.
In January 2020 she presented her new concert in the large auditorium of the Centro Cultural de Belém and is now preparing the release of her new work.
ELENA LA CONTE / voice
Elena La Conte is a flute player, singer and pedagogist of music. Born in Turin (Italy) in 1986, Elena moved to Paris in 2006 and in 2007 she started her studies of anthropology of music in Paris (Université Vincennes Saint-Denis).
In 2010-2011 she finished her Masters degree in Berlin (Freie Universität), where she spent one year in an Erasmus exchange. In 2012 she started a degree in Pedagogy of Music at the Université Paris 11 in Orsay (Paris) and jazz studies in Conservatoire de Villejuif and Montreuil.
Passionate about Brazilian music, she studied choro and Brazilian folklore in Clube do Choro in Paris and travelled Brazil for many years. She has worked as a music teacher for over ten years in creches, primary schools and conservatories. She currently lives in Lisbon, where she teaches in various schools such as “A Voz do Operario” and the “Music Room”.
She regularly performs with bands in Lisnoa: Faya-winner of Creole world musc award Berlin, the vocal band Circular, directed by Aixa Figini, Ensemble Libê, directed by Nicolas Farruggia. In 2019 she founded with Kristina van de Sand and Elide Gramegna the “Mosaicollective”, an interdisciplinary collective with which she created the audio-visual concert for children “O canto da baleia”.
AIDA ROSA / voice
Aida Rosa was born in Lisbon, Portugal. She started her music studies in 2008, at the Jbjazz school in Lisbon, where she took the Jazz course. In 2016 she graduated in Music, Jazz Variant at the University of Évora.
She had several teachers along her studies, such as Joana Espadinha, Joana Machado, Raquel Marques, Mário Delgado, André Fernandes and Paula Sousa. As a singer, she performed mostly in duo with guitar, having several influences from Jazz music, Brazilian and Latin music, Soul and Folk.
Besides her activity as a singer, she works as a music and Singing Teacher, both with children and adults. Currently, she is teaching Singing, Youth Choir and Music Theory various schools in Portugal, such as Crescendo in Oeiras and Interartes in Cascais.
HELENA REIS / voice
Helena Reis is a pianist and composer. Born in Évora, Portugal. She has participated in several projects, courses and music festivals: Big Bang 2016, Bons Sons 2017/19, Ethno Portugal 2017-19, Andanças 2018, Artes à Rua 2018-19, OH 2018, FMM Sines 2019.
In 2017 she created the group Fio à Meada - Vozes Tradicionais Femininas, an acapella female choir that recreates Portuguese traditional music. In 2018 she did the music composition for the theater play “Ópera dos Mendigos” by Vaclav Havel and, in 2019, “Um Acontecimento em Goga” by Slavko Grum. In 2019 she presents “The Human Voice on the Piano”, at Teatro da Trindade, from the monolog by Jean Cocteau. In 2020 she did the musical composition for the movie "Retrato de Borboletas" by Henrique Prudêncio and, in 2021, for "Sublime Enfado" from the director Pedro Senna Nunes with dramaturgy by Júlio Martín da Fonseca.
Currently, she does piano solo concerts, she has an acoustic duo with Tiago Amaral, she is part of the vocal ensemble Circular, music coordinator of Fio à Meada, member of the artistic team of Une Histoire Bizarre, researcher at York St. John University and a PhD student at Universidade de Lisboa.
JOSINA CÔRTE-REAL FILIPE / voz
Josina Filipe started her classic music education in piano and traverse flute in Lisbon (Portugal) and only later, while in Paris she started singing jazz. On her return to Portugal, she continued her jazz studies at Évora university where she obtained her Vocal Jazz Music degree.
In parallel, Josina Filipe also attended several masterclasses with international musicians such as Sara Serpa, Carlos Bica, Jim Black, Dave Holland, Kurt Rosenwinkle, Aaron Goldberg, Tigran Hamasyan, Sanna van Vliet (Conservatorium van Amsterdam) and Rebbeca Martin, Becca Stevens and Gretchen Partlato.
Currently she performs in duo or quintet in several jazz and traditional portuguese music projects (Em Improviso, Vilas Morenas and Mr. Fortez TrioPlus), in the jazz choir Jazz Cantat, directed by Tiago Marques, in the vocal ensemble Circular, and also as a singer-songwritter (Escuta Lisboa and Nuar collectives). Josina Filipe is also currently composing and producing her sixth musical for the children theatre company Rituais del Arte in Portugal.