Rodrigo Bacelar is a Portuguese composer born in 1995 in Porto.
He started his musical studies at the age of 5, and a year later was admitted at Porto’s Music Conservatory as a cello student of Vicente Chuaqui. When he was 11 he started piano classes with Fausto Neves. He finished high school in Fine Arts in 2013, and one year later he completed at the same level both piano and cello courses.
Rodrigo first premiered his works in the context of Conservatory’s Composition classes with Fernando Lapa. In 2014 he started a Bachelor in Composition at ESMAE, where he studied, among others, with Dimitris Andrikopoulos, Carlos Azevedo and Eugénio Amorim. In 2017 he concluded his bachelor studies as an Erasmus exchangee in Padua, Italy, under the tuition of Giovanni Bonato (while studying organ with Pierpaolo Turetta). Currently he is completing a Master of Music in Composition at the Norwegian Academy of Music, under the supervision of Lasse Thoresen.
In the meantime, Rodrigo had the opportunity to attend seminars and workshops given by Richard Ayres, Harrisson Birtwistle, Clemens Gadenstätter, Philippe Hurel, Helmut Lachenmann, Fabien Lévy and Salvatore Sciarrino.
Internationally, Rodrigo had works premiered in Padua, Italy, and another performed by the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. During the current year (2019) he has premieres scheduled in Edinburgh and Oslo.
In 2018, he was awarded first prize at the 11th International Composition Competition of Póvoa de Varzim.
Rodrigo’s production as a composer is mostly directed to acoustic instruments, and it is frequently influenced by non-musical impressions, like those originating from paintings, literature and cinema.