Biography of the trio and its musicians

Re:Flexus Trio

The trio emerged from a spontaneous encounter between instrumentalists Ana Sofia Matos, Mariana Morais and Maria Isabel Mendonça, who studied at the School of Music and Performing Arts of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (ESMAE). Since then, they have focused mainly on Romantic and contemporary repertoire, bringing together clarinet, viola and piano in a delicate and intimate chamber ensemble.

Their debut took place in March 2018 at the Teatro Helena Sá e Costa, as part of Festival ESMAE – an event dedicated to presenting and promoting emerging chamber music groups. Since then, they have performed regularly in Portugal and abroad. In 2022 they were part of the programme of the Viseu International Spring Music Festival; in 2023 they made their debut at the Madrid International Contemporary Music Festival and, in 2024, at the Música Viva Festival in Lisbon.

In 2019 they performed at the Seixal Municipal Auditorium, giving the Portuguese premiere of “Trio for clarinet, viola, piano” (1994) by the American composer Eric Sawyer (1962-). Since then, contemporary music has been at the core of the ensemble’s repertoire. The current line-up features violist Catarina Gonçalves.

Members

Clarinet

Ana Sofia Matos

Born in Gondomar, she began her musical studies at the age of 9 at the Porto Music Conservatory, in the class of Adam Wierzba.

She has worked under conductors António Saiote, Andreas Stoehr, Ernst Schelle, Kamen Goleminov, Tim Steiner and Rafael Vilaplana, and has taken part in masterclasses and advanced courses with Nuno Pinto, António Saiote, Iva Barbosa, Nicholas Cox, Florent Héau, Paolo Ravaglia, Juan Ferrer, Cândida Oliveira and Vicente Alberola.

In 2014 she graduated in Nutrition from the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences of the University of Porto. In 2018 she completed her degree at the School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE), in the class of Nuno Pinto, and in 2020 she completed a Master’s in Music Teaching at the University of Aveiro, in the class of Luís Carvalho. She is a founding member of the Clarinetes Ligature ensemble, which has presented its own show at several international clarinet festivals.

Viola

Catarina Gonçalves

Born in Odemira, Catarina Gonçalves began studying the viola at the age of 10 at the Escola de Artes do Alentejo Litoral, in the class of João Paulo Gaspar. In the 5th grade she studied with Caio Oshiro and, the following year, joined Gonçalo Ruivo’s class at EPABI, where she completed the String and Keyboard Instrumentalist course.

In 2020 she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Music – Viola Performance at ESMAE, in the class of Jorge Alves, with whom she also studied for her Master’s in Music Teaching – Viola, at ESMAE and the Porto School of Education, which she completed in November 2022.

She has taken part in masterclasses with renowned violists such as Tatjana Masurenko, Jon Thorne, Marc Tooten, Susanne Van Els, Dorothea Vogel, António Pereira, Máté Szücs (as an auditor) and Joana Cipriano, as well as a chamber music masterclass with Casper Frantz. Throughout her career she has collaborated with several orchestras and projects.

As a freelance musician she regularly works with the Porto Symphony Orchestra Casa da Música, Orquestra Clássica do Sul, Orquestra Sinfónica do Algarve, Orquestra do Norte, Orquestra da Costa Atlântica, Sinfonietta de Braga, the Braga District Chamber Orchestra, the Porto Polytechnic Classical Orchestra, Ópera na Academia e na Cidade, Orquestra Clássica da Beira Interior and the Santa Maria da Feira Youth Symphony Orchestra. She took part in the APROARTE National Orchestra Course (16th and 17th editions), and performed at the 32nd Semaine Internationale de Musique (Luxembourg) and the 45th International Viola Congress (Rotterdam). She has worked with conductors including Stefan Blunier, Alan Buribayev, Vassily Sinaisky, Jean Marc Burfin, Peter Askim, Thomas Hauschild, Andreas Stoehr, Michelangelo Galeati, Javier Viceiro, Jean-Sébastien Béreau, Pedro Neves, Jan Wierzba, António Saiote, Pedro Meireles, Diogo Costa, José Eduardo Gomes and Luís Cipriano, among others.

Catarina Gonçalves is also involved in several chamber music projects, most notably Re:Flexus Trio and Ar d’Corda Ensemble.

Piano

Maria Isabel Mendonça

Born in Seia, she began studying piano at the Seia Music Conservatory in 2003, in the classes of Ludovina Fernandes, Tatiana Yakimova and Hugo Passeira. From 2006 she also studied the violin at the same school, with João Mendes and Luís Gomes.

From 2010 she attended the Coimbra Regional Conservatory, in the class of Tatiana Yakimova, where she completed the advanced piano course with the top final grade of 20 out of 20.

She took part in the Colégio São Teotónio Piano Competition in 2011 and the Florinda Santos Piano Competition in 2012, winning 2nd and 3rd prize respectively. As a soloist she has performed at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, as part of the “Dias da Música” festival dedicated to J. S. Bach, and at the Pavilhão Centro de Portugal in Coimbra.

In 2017 she graduated with distinction from the Integrated Master’s in Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto. In 2019 she completed her Bachelor’s in Performance – Piano and Keyboards at the School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE), in the classes of Madalena Soveral and Luís Filipe Sá. Since 2018 she has worked regularly as an accompanying pianist (Escola Profissional da Serra da Estrela, Seia Music Conservatory, ESPROARTE, Gondomar Music Conservatory).

In 2023 she attended an advanced course in contemporary music performance in Seia, led by composer Jaime Reis and conductor Rita Castro Blanco.

She is also active in traditional-rooted music, with piano, violin and voice as her instruments of choice. Together with César Prata she founded the group “Ningue Ningue”, which released the albums “Ningue Ningue” (2020) and “No Paço e no Terreiro” (2022). She has taken part in the music theatre productions “Labirinto” (2018), directed by Graeme Pulleyn with musical direction by César Prata, produced by Teatrão (Coimbra); “Teias & Odisseias” (2023), directed by Graeme Pulleyn with musical direction by Ricardo Augusto, produced by Cem Palcos (Viseu); and “Anda lá pra adiante q’eu atrás de ti não vou” (2024), co-created with actress Ana Madureira, with artistic direction by Graeme Pulleyn and Joana Pupo, produced by Cem Palcos.