António Godinho is a young Portuguese recorder player specializing in medieval and Renaissance music. With training from the Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espetáculo (ESMAE) in Porto, where he studied under Pedro Sousa Silva, and a master’s degree from Schola Cantorum Basiliensis under the guidance of Corina Marti, Godinho combines deep historical knowledge with an interpretive sensitivity that prioritizes expressiveness and emotional connection. His work focuses on exploring early music not as a static object, but as living material, open to reinterpretation and improvisation, always with respect for original sources.

[Altea Guevara & António Godinho – December 10, 2025, Coimbra]

How did you start playing the recorder, and what has your professional journey been like up to now?

I started playing the recorder like many children do, in school. I think I was about six years old. That was before I entered the Coimbra Conservatory at age eight, where I began studying the recorder formally and completed all the grades up to the eighth level.

After that, I went on to earn my degree in early music at ESMAE, studying with Pedro Sousa Silva. Later, I continued my studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where I’ve been for the past four years.

Did you start studying early music from the very beginning of your musical training?

I think the awareness that I was playing early music came after I’d already been studying the recorder for several years, though still within the conservatory. Probably in the later years, when we started saying, “Oh, this is early music,” as opposed to what isn’t. Not because someone explicitly explained it, but because I was playing the recorder and working on recorder repertoire, where many different realities coexist. There’s a lot of contemporary repertoire for the recorder that obviously doesn’t belong to early music. The initial repertoire children work on depends a lot on the teacher, but it’s usually not early music in that sense.

What’s interesting is that I always played early music without being fully aware that it was something special. For me, it was just music. I remember that one of the first “serious” pieces I played, at eight or nine years old, in a conservatory recital, was a sonata by Veracini. I think it was one of the first, if not the first, public performances I gave. And I played it with complete naturalness.

So, in reality, I’ve always played early music. The awareness that I was doing something specific—something different from more canonical repertoires like Mozart or others—came later. That realization came afterward, not at the beginning.

I already had a strong foundation from the conservatory. It’s also worth noting that, for example, in Coimbra, when I started studying, although there wasn’t formally a department of early music, there was indeed an environment around it. With teachers like Inês Moz Caldas, a flute specialist, and Júlio Galvão Dias, a harpsichordist… He was actually the harpsichord teacher at the conservatory when I entered, and both functioned almost like an informal early music department. It was always present, from when I arrived until now, though it’s true that today there are many more activities in this field.

That awareness and environment already existed. So when I entered ESMAE to study early music—with a curriculum more focused on this field—many of the concepts and content we worked on there were already familiar to me. It wasn’t something completely new, but rather a deepening of what I already knew. The difference was that everything was more structured and precise.

What impact have the institutions where you studied had on your professional integration?

In general, I understand that my collaboration in various projects I work with has come from the schools where I studied: ESMAE and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. That is, as a student, you’re in contact with professionals who are your teachers and who are also active in the field. Sometimes, they involve their students in their own projects to give more opportunities to both their ensembles and young musicians.

I’ve seen this a lot in early music—I don’t know if it happens more than in classical music, but I’d say it happens everywhere. Teachers are also professionals in the field, so often, if you have a student who is training and whom they’ve seen develop closely in class, it’s natural for them to call on that student for projects. After all, the student is still someone’s pupil within the same institution. This world is particular because, within an institution, you have teachers and students, but in the end, we’re all musicians in a small ecosystem, and of course, we end up working in the same circles.

This happens in Portugal, and I’d say it happens everywhere. I can tell you that in Basilea, for example, it’s very common because there are also many people in that environment. It’s a huge and very dynamic school. It’s a completely different scale compared to other places. I’d say there’s more movement and transfer of students into the professional circuit the more resources and people are involved in an institution.

Now that you’re back in Portugal after finishing your studies in Basilea, do you think there’s a trend of Portuguese musicians specializing in early music emigrating? What are their motivations and expectations for seeking work and training abroad, and to what extent are these fulfilled?

When I entered Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, there was only one other Portuguese student besides me, and last year two more Portuguese students enrolled. Now, there’s also another Portuguese girl in the Medieval and Renaissance department. So, although it’s a small community, it exists and is present. Later, I met more Portuguese people—some who had applied like me or whom I knew from Portugal. So, although it’s a small group, there’s a community that persists.

In my specific case, for example, I already had a very clear idea that I wanted to study medieval music in greater depth. In Portugal, there’s no specific curriculum for medieval music like the one offered by Schola Cantorum: there, you can do a bachelor’s and master’s degree specializing in medieval and Renaissance music. That was one of my main motivations. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to study, and that was the only place where I could find it.

Additionally, at the Schola, there are people from all over, each with their own motivations. Some go to study early music for the first time, while others seek training in very specific areas not offered elsewhere. There are also people who aren’t yet sure exactly what they want to do with music but feel drawn to early music and go to explore their path. It’s a diverse world, full of different profiles.

What do you identify as the greatest strengths of the early music sector in Portugal?

The first aspect I’d highlight is that early music in Portugal is growing. More and more people are getting involved; one of the most distinctive and interesting characteristics of the musical scene in Portugal—not just in early music, but in general—is that there are many people eager to work and create opportunities. There’s a strong awareness of the need to generate a market and innovate, with very original ideas about how to do so. It’s a very entrepreneurial spirit.

I think many of the characteristics we observe in Portugal also apply to Spain—they’re an Iberian reality. Some aspects are very similar, even identical. But these issues, though they may seem like difficulties, can become opportunities. I see them as something positive in many cases, something with potential. For example, if we compare concrete data—such as the number of early music festivals in Portugal and Spain versus countries like France, Germany, Belgium, or Switzerland—it’s likely there are fewer. However, that apparent disadvantage can be an opportunity to innovate.

The market is limited and saturated, concentrated in certain cultural hubs. But that invites us to ask: How can we create our own market? How can we innovate in early music? This is a relevant discussion not only for early music but for classical music in general: How can we make what we do relevant to audiences? How can we generate income? How can we make the public feel welcome at our concerts, rather than excluded from this niche we work in? How can we invite the public to engage with something unfamiliar without making them feel like outsiders? How can we make space for them within this singular, rare, special music so they feel welcomed, not excluded?

I have a realistic optimism, not a fantastical one. It’s not about ignoring problems but understanding them. Of course, they’re real problems, but not all of them are unique to early music—they’re structural issues in economies. It’s important to recognize the particularities of each area but also the value of looking at reality and saying, “Okay, this can be an opportunity to experiment, to do new things.” Little by little, people with this mindset are emerging, and I believe they’ll react to build something new and more solid.

If you look at the main early music centers in Europe, we’re all poor. Small, excited by the little we have, always dependent on subsidies. Even patronage or sponsorship models are limited and concentrated in a few hubs, creating dynamics that can have dubious impacts. These pressures, created by difficulties, can become opportunities. They force us to seek new ways of acting. For example, the project “Um Temp(lo) Revisitado” we did with Arte Minima in Guimarães last September is something I haven’t seen in Switzerland or at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, despite it being an academic center with great prestige. We held open rehearsals in a museum room while museum visitors could come and listen to us rehearse. We explained what we were doing, talked about the instruments, and answered their questions. A project of that scale and nature is unique, and it emerged here, in Portugal.

There’s something here we can explore and develop, without a doubt.

What do you see as the main future challenges for consolidating this artistic and professional circuit?

There are many more people involved in early music. That’s an evident trend. I’m not talking in terms of the market, because the reality is that there are more trained musicians and young people eager to do things than there are real opportunities. This is reflected in the increasing number of early music groups emerging, but I don’t see the market growing at the same pace as the number of professionals.

One of the main challenges is precisely that: how to balance the growth of musicians with real opportunities. I don’t think it’s a problem that Portugal—or any country—can solve alone, but it’s something that needs to be addressed.

I believe the drive to work and create original projects, to be entrepreneurial, isn’t exclusive to early music but reflects a broader dynamic in Portugal. If we look at it from a general perspective, Portugal has always been a victim of its geography. Many things remain on the periphery, as if we were in “the corner of Europe,” somewhat forgotten. It’s a reality.

So, there are two key aspects: on one hand, people eager to do things, but on the other, the awareness of how difficult it is to connect with broader networks. It’s complex. For example, two colleagues of mine from Basilea who have a traverso and lute duo as part of the EEEmerging program by REMA recently had a concert at the Auditório de Espinho because this is one of the few spaces in Portugal integrated into the network. There are exceptions like this that show international networks can reach here, but there are many complex elements at play that make it very difficult to overcome this obstacle, I think.

Then, if we look inward at the reality of our local market and its sustainability, I see that will, coordination, and creativity are needed to manage how tense it can become. There’s pressure because if more and more people in Portugal are training in early music and, upon finishing their studies, find a market with very limited access—conditioned by who can access public funding, institutions, and visibility—the question is inevitable: “What am I going to do if there are no opportunities here?” Many face this reality, which can lead to high competition, frustrated careers, and a brain drain.

Cooperation and planning with a spirit of camaraderie could drive us forward. For example, in Spain, there are early music associations, networks that somehow foster cooperation, though they don’t always fulfill their purpose perfectly. In Portugal, nothing like that exists. Although some people might have the will, I don’t know if there’s enough of a culture of cooperation for it to be viable right now for a significant number of musicians and groups to join forces and create a broader cooperation network that promotes everyone’s interests.

Still, the fact that we’re talking about this may indicate there’s awareness of the need for cooperation, that even if these seem like residual positions, perhaps the mindset is changing. I have hope, especially in our generation. We’re very aware of these challenges and have the will to change things.

I think the generational problems we face—and that make us ask these questions—aren’t unique to music. It’s something that repeats across all fields. Our generation is in a complicated situation: we’re aware that the decades of welfare and opportunities are over, and all we’ve inherited are the remnants. It’s as if our societies are beginning to collapse, and we’re realizing we need to react—either by escaping or exploring ways to change things—and this isn’t just felt in music but in all areas.

For example, some of my closest friends are engineers, a sector that in Portugal usually has more job opportunities and stability than the arts. However, even they are talking about emigrating because their job market is collapsing. This is no longer just a problem for artists; it’s a generational problem.

It’s true there are very pessimistic people. I’ve met many Portuguese who’ve left the country because they don’t see a future in Portugal for what they want to do. They believe they’ll have more opportunities elsewhere, but the reality is that the problems we face here also exist in Spain and other countries. The difficulties are similar everywhere, though in other places there may be more infrastructure and resources, a different way of managing the cultural sector. But it’s difficult no matter where you go.

However, I also know the opposite: people like me who left Portugal to seek something very specific that didn’t exist here but always maintained the hope and will to make it possible, to return and bring new perspectives here while maintaining an international dialogue. I think there must be an awareness, a hope that things can change.

In the end, I believe the two great challenges are: on one hand, managing an artistic sector that is a growing niche economy—with more and more people involved and more interested audiences—that is also inserted in a general context of increasing crisis. This generates contrasting phenomena and reformulates Portugal’s possibilities in the European early music scene, depending too much on coordinated actions to achieve it, which is complex to concretize in a market that grows in a fragmented and uncontrolled way.

However, the greatest challenge may be conservatism in thinking. In other places, institutions are more established, but here the problems are the same, though aggravated by the lack of resources. This forces us to be more creative and address fundamental questions, such as how to make early music relevant to audiences. Often, these questions have a more aesthetic and philosophical background: What is early music, and what are we doing with it? It may seem that asking these questions leads nowhere and that everything must be a rush forward, but that attitude doesn’t help in reformulating new, more sustainable production systems.