renato de carvalho ferreira is a musician, improviser, composer and music teacher based in amsterdam. renato plays saxophone and double bass, and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in composition from the royal conservatoire in the hague. originally from são paulo, brazil, he was a member of the ensemble of ricardo zohyo, a long-term collaborator of hermeto pascoal, studying many forms of brazilian remote folklore as well as brazilian instrumental music. in the netherlands since 2007, he studied classical contemporary composition with martijn padding, cornelis de bondt, yannis kyriakydes a.o. during his master’s, he composed the music and wrote the libretto of an opera, “the enchanted world of economy”, using basic categories of classical economy, such as commodity, value, money etc. as characters; part of this opera was performed in the hague in 2013. since 2010, he has been an active improviser and organiser in amsterdam, where he plays in several ensembles, including trolleybus, haffah, the royal improvisers orchestra, luc ex’ music of inevitable sounds and his own project, the native aliens ensemble, which is dedicated to playing composed music using forms of brazilian folk music combined with free improvisation. in parallel to his music career, he holds a degree in geography from the university of são paulo, during which he researched subjects related to economy, politics and urban development, and worked as a geography teacher in the public school system of são paulo.

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