Pianist and composer Heloísa Fernandes was born in the city of Presidente Prudente in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and now lives in the city of São Paulo.  She began studying the piano at age five with her mother, who was a pianist and musician.  Further on in her formal education, she was a student of pianists Paulo Gori and Gilberto Tinetti, with whom she cultivated her taste for classical music.

She graduated with degrees in piano performance from the Conservatory of Music and Arts of São Paulo, in conducting from the Tom Jobim University Music Center, and composition from the University of São Paulo.

Her repertoire focuses on sublime jazz and instrumental interpretations of popular Brazilian music.

In 2001, she was one of five finalists in Brazil's leading musical competition – the Prémio Visa de Música Brasileira – recognition that brought her to national attention and broadened her professional career.  Since then she has studied Brazilian popular music, folk music, and dance, drawing on them as inspiration for her compositions.

In 2005, she accompanied the Italian harmonica soloist Gianluca Littera with the Chamber Orchestra of the University of São Paulo conducted by Gil Jardim.  Later that year she was invited by the city of São Paulo to participate in a tribute to the legendary Brazilian pianist Guiomar Novaes, giving a solo piano performance in the Teatro Municipal of São João da Boa Vista.

2005 also included the release of her first recording – Fruto – on Brazil's Maritaca label.  The repertoire consists of her own compositions as well as her arrangements of works by Pixinguinha and Caetano Veloso; and her musical collaborators included some of Brazil's finest musicians -- percussionists Naná Vasconcelos, Ari Colares, and Sérgio Reze, bassist Zeca Assumpcão, and flutist Teco Cardoso.  Gil Jardim provided overall musical direction.  The release of this CD led to performances throughout Brazil, and recognition for Fernandes worldwide.

In the last year, she has developed partnerships with Brazilian composer Léa Freire and with saxophonist Maria Bragança, including a series of concerts with Bragança at the Festival of Minas Gerais held at the universities of São João Del Rey and Ouro Preto.

Her next recording is in production and features bassist Zeca Assumpção and the harmonica of Gianluca Littera from performances recorded live at Teatro Alfa in São Paulo.

She has also established a new project to resurrect and extend the musicological work of Mário de Andrade, a Brazilian poet, novelist, photographer, musicologist, art historian and critic.  He had an enormous influence on Brazilian literature in the twentieth century and was a pioneer in the field of ethnomusicology.  Fernandes will focus on his research into national Brazilian melodies from the years 1936 to 1938.

He traveled throughout the country, transcribing on paper the melodies people sang for him, and published them in the book Melodias Registradas por Meios Não-Mecânicos.  During this time, audio recording technology was not available in Brazil.

Fernandes will compose and record new instrumental arrangements of these melodies.  They come from diverse parts of Brazil, and reflect diverse rhythms – candomblé, maracatú, cateretê, samba, toada.  And they will serve as the Brazilian soul of her new works.  In this way, she hopes to simultaneously preserve the past while creating new music.  Their release is planned for a CD entitled Melodias do Brasil, Identidade e Transformação.

Comments from the press about Heloísa Fernandes

"... Suddenly, without any warning, no change of the times, no particular herald, this disc comes to put the music of Heloísa Fernandes in the world with the rest of us, now richer and more beautiful. Pianist and composer, she comes into our discography with impressive security and considerable daring, interpreting an instrumental repertoire in the company of partners such as percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and violinist Claudio Cruz – a contrast of names which, in itself, is the measure of originality.  One of her greatest virtues is an underlying impulse, a joy both solar and sober, a contentment in the fun and freedom of making music blended with the responsibility to play everything with meaning, even in the free improvisations ..."
Arthur Nestrovski
Folha de Sao Paulo
18 March 2005

"... This pianist from São Paulo loves Bill Evans and old forró music and straight-ahead jazz and avant-garde jazz and classical music and life and love and children and peace and liberty and friendship, and it all comes across here on this stunning record.  Better wake up, American jazzos, Brazil is KILLING you right now."
Matt Cibula
Best Jazz Albums of 2005
popmatters.com
19 December 2005

"If Heloísa Fernandes didn't exist, I think I would have to invent her.  Surely she can not really be real."
Matt Cibula
All About Jazz

"... Heloísa Fernandes is most certainly ready to be discovered and valued by a large jazz audience.  What we hear on this debut album is of very high standard.  I cannot wait to learn about the next project of this amazing pianist."
Kees Schoof
musicabrasileira.org
April 2005