Patrícia Pinheiro

Patrícia Pinheiro grew up surrounded by stories. Inspired by her grandfather’s gift for storytelling and his devotion to Portugal’s oral song traditions, she developed a deep passion for sharing narratives—both through music and beyond. At the age of twenty-one, she left Portugal to pursue a master’s degree at the HfMDK in Frankfurt, setting the stage for an international career that spans orchestral, contemporary, and interdisciplinary performance.

She has collaborated with ensembles such as the HR-Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Ulysses with Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, Philharmonie Leipzig, Anhaltisches Theater Dessau, Mendelssohn Kammerorchester Leipzig, Harzer Theater, and Ensemble Reflektor, among many others. Her performances have taken her to leading festivals including Festival Manifeste in Paris, Kunstfest Weimar, Into the Open, Altonale, Festival Impuls Graz, Lucerne Festival, Berliner Festspiele, and Warsaw Autumn.

Beyond traditional concert stages, Patrícia is drawn to projects that explore the intersections of music, theater, and technology. She has been involved in productions such as Falstaff at Staatstheater Gießen and Solastalgia at Schauspiel Frankfurt—a project that sparked her fascination with improvisation and electronics. Her curiosity led her to collaborate on Tarek Atoui’s Extended Playground exhibition at GFZK Leipzig, where she explored performance beyond the oboe, engaging with space, movement, and sound in new ways.

Betwenn 2022-2025 she was an academist at the TONALI Bühnenakademie, where she developed À Mesa, a site-specific artistic intervention in Portugal that reconnects communities through collective rituals of listening and sharing. In October 2024, she joined the International Ensemble Modern Academy with a scholarship from the Kunststiftung NRW, further deepening her engagement with contemporary music and interdisciplinary creation. With the support of the Deutsche Orchester-Stiftung in 2024/25, she developed I would… if I could get out of my head, a performance for oboe and electronics featuring her own writing and dramaturgy, created in collaboration with artist Chiara Stuto. It premiered in 2025 at ZIMMT in Leipzig and will be presented at further venues in 2026.

For Patrícia, storytelling remains at the heart of her artistic identity, whether expressed through oboe, electronics, improvisation, or collaborative projects across disciplines. 

Supported by the ULYSSES Platform, Patrícia was a member of the IEMA Ensemble 2024/25, performing at both impuls and Gaudeamus in 2025.