José dos Santos Pinto was a Portuguese oboist, composer and teacher. He was born on 17th July 1915 in Lobelhe do Mato (Mangualde), and he started his musical studies with his father on the town’s philharmonic band.
In 1935 he played at Banda Regimental de Viseu, under the conducting of the musicologist Manuel Joaquim. He had a terrible accident and went to Lisbon, where he started to play in Batalhão de Caçadores 5, in the year of 1939.
One year later, he became 1st oboe in orchestras like: Orquestra Filarmónica de Lisboa (founded by Ivo Cruz); Orquestra do Teatro Nacional de São Carlos and Orquestra and Quinteto Nacional de Sopro da Emissora Nacional (with artists like Adácio Pestana; Ângelo Pereira; Carlos Saraiva; Louis Boulton, etc.). He won various distinctions on Batalhão de Caçadores 5 and Guarda Nacional Republicana.
In 1940/41 he began his studies in Conservatório Nacional (Lisbon), where he finished the oboe and composition courses, and where he taught until 1987. In 1950 he won a scholarship to develop his knowledge in Conservatoire Nationale de Musique (Paris), where he gained six qualifications: oboe, chamber music, fugue, orchestral and choral conducting.
He trained composition and orchestral conducting in Académie Internationale d’ Étè (Nice) and in Cursos Internationais de Férias da Costa do Sol (Estoril, Portugal). In 1953, Santos Pinto built an original oboe, projected by him.
He played in various concerts programmed by Sociedade de Concertos all over the country, with names like Helena Sá e Costa, Celeste Picoto or Maria Vitorino.
Like a composer, he wrote: two sonates and a concertino for oboe; a sonata and a concertino for clarinet; a wind quintet; symphonic poems (Canção da Serra; Quadras ao Gosto Popular; Fátima); a classic symphony; and various marchs like Lusitânia, and so on.
Santos Pinto died on 27th Mars 2014 and before that, he gave all of his works to Biblioteca Dr. Alexandre Alves and Banda de Lobelhe do Mato (Mangualde, Portugal).
Ana Margarida Cardoso
22-05-2015