As a performer specializing in medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoires, Pedro Sousa Silva has pursued a career spanning over 25 years. After studying music with Pedro Couto Soares (ESML) and Pedro Memelsdorff (Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano), and musicology at the NOVA University of Lisbon, he completed a PhD at the University of Aveiro, with a dissertation focusing on the interaction between theory and practice in the Renaissance.
He has performed in around 200 concerts across most Western European countries and in Brazil, always within the context of ensembles dedicated to historically informed performance. He has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Enrico Onofri, Riccardo Minasi, Lawrence Cummings, and Amandine Beyer. Currently, he focuses most of his artistic activity on three projects: his own ensemble Arte Minima (dedicated to 16th-century Portuguese music); the Baroque orchestra Gli Incogniti (directed by Amandine Beyer), where he performs as a soloist in a program centered on the concertos of J. S. Bach; and the medieval ensemble Vozes Alfonsinas (directed by Manuel Pedro Ferreira).
He has been a professor at ESMAE since 2002, where he co-founded the Early Music Program and initiated the Polyphonia postgraduate course. He is a regular guest at prestigious international music institutions, giving masterclasses in recorder and seminars on Renaissance performance practice (e.g., Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Joseph Haydn Konservatorium, Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, Norges Musikkhøgskole, Akademie für Alte Musik Bremen, Hochschule für Musik Trossingen, São Paulo State University).
As a scholar, he promotes a strong link between historical research and performance, and within this perspective, he is currently a member of three international research teams focused on medieval and Renaissance topics.
Since 2007, he has also been active in the field of recording production, having produced and edited several albums, including Arte da Usurpação (Phonoedition, 2007) and The Bad Tempered Consort (Challenge Classics, 2009) by the ensemble A Imagem da Melancolia — the latter selected by Público as one of the ten best classical music albums of that year — Volúpia (Numérica, 2012) by Ensemble Darcos featuring music by Nuno Côrte-Real, Royne des Fleurs (CESEM-P.Porto, 2021) by the ensemble Sesquialtera, and In Splendoribus (musicusminusculus, 2021) by Arte Minima.
