““... his approach was full of fire and energy, beautifully under-pedalled with excellent phrasing and not overblown. For me Raúl is a true artist with a great future and not merely a pianist.” ”
Born in 1993, Raul da Costa started his musical studies at the age of seven in his hometown's Music School, where he first studied piano with Professor Luis Amaro and then with Emília Coelho. From 2006 to 2011, he studied in Academia de Música S.Pio X in Vila do Conde, Portugal, with Professor Álvaro Teixeira Lopes.
Raúl da Costa has given recitals in the most prestigious halls in Portugal such as in Casa Da Música, Centro Cultural de Belém and in the Teatro S. Luís in Lisbon, among many others. He has played in renowned festivals as the Saint Pére de Rodes International Music Festival, in Spain, Póvoa de Varzim International Music Festival, Dias da Música in Lisbon, in the Marvão International Music Festival, in the Kammermusiktage Ahrenshoop, in the Hommage à Yehudi Menuhin Festival in Paris, and in the Asia-Siberia-Europe Music Festival in Russia. He has also given recitals in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, England, Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, Czech Republic and Austria.
With a vast repertoire from Bach to Zimmermann, chamber music has represented a main point in Raúl’s career, specially the collaboration with Bruno Monsaingeon, Valeriy Sokolov, Christoph Poppen and Juliane Banse. He has played under the baton of Cesário Costa, Martin Andre, Vitaliy Protasov, Vladimir Lande, Javier Viceiro, Theodore Kuchar, Joseph Swensen, Stephan Blunier and with various orchestras such as the Porto Symphony Orchestra, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra or the Siberian State Symphony Orchestra.
Raúl ist the 1st Prize winner of the various international piano competitions, including the San Sebastian International Piano Competition, the Scriabin International Competition in Paris and in the Young Pianist of the North International Piano Competition in Newcastle. He was also awarded for various times the special prize for best performance of a Portuguese music. He was a prizewinner of the 1st European Union Piano Competition in Prague (representing Portugal) with only 16 years of age. Raúl is a scholar of the renowned Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Foundation, and of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. In 2016, Raúl da Costa won the 1st Prize and all special prizes in the ZF- Musikpreis International Piano Competition.
He has made live recordings for both Portuguese and foreign Radio and Television, such as for the NDR and SWR radios in Germany. His recording of Rachmaninov’s 4th Piano Concerto with Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música and Stephan Blunier has been recently released on CD.
Raúl profited of the work with distinguished artists such as Maria João Pires, Ferenc Rados, Dmitri Bashkirov, Malcolm Bilson, Boris Berezovsky, Tatiana Zelikman and Lev Natochenny.
Raúl studied in the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover, where he was part of the class of the renowned Professor Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Professor Bernd Goetzke. He is currently a student of the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, in the class of Professor Kirill Gerstein.
He is the newly appointed Artistic Director of the renowned Festival Internacional de Música da Póvoa de Varzim.