Our choir was founded by Walter Sulzer on 23rd March 2006 and focused initially on the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
Four of the five original members are still in the choir which now has a nucleus of 33 members from various European countries (currently Germany, Holland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland & the UK) plus additional floating members. Being an international group we sing in various languages, and in Latin, and have built up a wide repertoire of both sacred and secular music spanning the centuries from the C 16th to the present day. When Walter retired in 2013, Francisco Brazão took over as maestro and introduced the choir to different musical eras and styles.
When we learned in 2015 that we were losing Francisco Brazão to a Scottish adventure, it was felt that we couldn't be as fortunate with a third maestro after the high standard set by the first two. We were wrong. António de Jesus, who had sung in the tenor section for a year, agreed to take over, bringing his many years of choral experience and vast musical knowledge, and he has been every bit as demanding, encouraging and inspiring as Walter and Francisco. He has continued to explore different eras and countries in both our sacred and secular repertoire and to move us out of our ‘home’ of S.Brás to give performances in Vilamoura, Almancil and Tavira. Under his leadership, we have given many concerts, such as Vivaldi’s Gloria in conjunction with the Coro da Academia de Música de Tavira, accompanied by a string quartet, and contemporary composer, Jacob de Haan’s, Missa Brevis with the Banda Filarmónica de São Brás.
We gave our first performance of Haydn’s Te Deum in C major in Vilamoura Church in December - 2019, to a very appreciative audience and which, for a small choir, was quite an achievement. Our summer concerts in the past couple of years have been predominately secular with madrigals and habaneras in the same programme! Every December we hold our annual Christmas concert in the Museum and one other in a church somewhere in the area. We also sing at weddings - currently we have two in our schedule for this year
