Born in Porto, Portugal. Bernardo started his horn studies at Artave.
Graduated from Lisbon’s Escola Superior, studying with Jonathan Luxton. He continued his studies with Ab Koster in Hamburg and with Radovan Vlatkovic and Javier Bonet in Madrid. With Ab Koster he started the study of natural horn.
He has received scholarships from Lisbon Polytechnic Institute e Gulbenkian Fundation.
Since 2000 he is a member of the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música (previous called Orquestra Nacional do Porto)
As a guest artist he has played with all major Portuguese orchestras and several Spanish orchestras.
He participated in many master classes where he studied with Hermann Baumann, Ab Koster, Radovan Vlatkovic, Bruno Schneider, Javier Bonet, Stefan Dohr, Froydis Ree Wekre, Philip Myers, Fergus McWilliam, Hervé Joulain, Will Sanders, Jasper de Waal, Zdenek Tylsar, among others.
He is a member of the chamber music ensembles Trompas Lusas Horn Quartet, Camerata Senza Misura, Ars Invicta, and Tu B’Horn.
He has been teaching in several music academies and conservatories, and at the moment is horn teacher at the Espinho Professional Music School and at University of Aveiro. He has oriented many masterclasses in several cities and schools of Portugal. He has been invited to serve as jury in several national competitions for young musicians.
He was awarded the First Prize in the Philip Farkas Competition organized by the International Horn Society in Lahti, Finland in 2002.
He has played as soloist with several Portuguese and Spanish orchestras, performing works from the standard horn repertoire (like Weber, R.Schumann, W.A.Mozart, Britten, Cherubini…).
His discography counts with recordings as member of the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, with the chamber music ensemble Camerata Senza Misura and solo recordings.
Bernardo commissioned works from several composers, as Sérgio Azevedo, Telmo Marques, Luís Carvalho and Liduino Pitombeira. He played first performances of many solo and chamber music works.