Vasco Ramalho
Vasco Ramalho was born in 1982 in Reguengos de Monsaraz – Portugal. He began his musical studies on the age of 12, at the Vocational School of Music in Évora. He finished his course with distinction and immediately entered the university in the same city (at Universidade de Évora). As a student of this institution he graduated in 2005 and was awarded with a merit scholarship for two consecutive years. This prize distinguishes the two best students of each course. Afterwards he completed his study with internationally renowned artist Ludwig Albert at the Royal Conservatory Antwerp in Belgium and obtained the postgraduate marimba soloist. He participated in various international courses and festivals such as the Zeltsman Marimba Festival 2003 – U.S.A.; the Ludwig Albert Int.Marimba Academy 2006 – Belgium; the Keiko Abe Academy 2007 – Belgium ; the IPEW 2008 – Croatia...
Since he began his teaching career on 2005, Vasco Ramalho defined as his main goal to develop Percussion in the South Region of Portugal, as, back then, there was only one school which had Percussion as a subject. On 2005, he managed to begin the class of percussion in the Regional Conservatory of Alto Alentejo and in the Regional Conservatory of Baixo Alentejo. He carried on with his project and, on 2006, he began working in the Musical Academy of Lagos and in the Conservatory in Portimão. On 2007, he started working at Lagoa’s Conservatory and at the Regional Conservatory of Vila Real de Santo António. Nowadays, he is a teacher of Percussion at the Musical Academy of Lagos, where he is part of the pedagogical board at Lagoa’s Conservatory.
He is the founder and the artistic director of several projects: PORQUESÃO ENSEMBLE (Percussion group of Lagoa’s Conservatory); ABMIRAM ENSEMBLE (Academy Marimba Ensemble); OPA (Academy Percussion Orchestra); DUO DINÂMICO (Percussion Duo); ABMIRAM TRIO (Percussion Trio). He's related as artistic director of the "Festival Internacional de Percussão cidade de Portimão".
For upcoming years he's devoted as a pedagogue, will present his first concerto for 3 marimbas and Orchestra (work comissioned by the Musical Academy of Lagos), will release his first CD entitled Meu Fado – Essências de Marimba, and will host the II Festival Internacional de Percussão cidade de Portimão and the "Ludwig Albert Int. Summer Marimba Academy".
Vasco Ramalho is an Adams artist performing on the Adams marimba Ludwig Albert Signature artist model.
