ensemble
Purple Thistle
Directionartistic
Antony Fernandes
Antony Fernandes was born on March 31, 1984 in Paris, France. He moved to Portugal as a child and, from an early age, showed great aptitude for music and theater. He studied theater at Academia Contemporânea do Espectulo, which he finished in 2007 with an average of 16 out of 20. Throughout his training and professional life he had the opportunity to work with great Portuguese and foreign theater professionals such as António Capelo, João Paulo Costa, Kuniaki Ida at Teatro do Bolhão, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti at Teatro Nacional São João, Moncho Rodriguez, Lígia Falcão, Pedro Giestas at the Póvoa de Lanhoso Creativity Center... He also worked with large street theater companies such as ”Les Plasticiens Volants”, France and ”Titanic Theatre”, Germany. It also has a participation in the youth series “Morangos com Açúcar”. In 2009 he was invited by Lérias, Associação Cultural, Miranda do Douro to develop a community theater company where he creates several shows, always including the local population in their creation. As a musician he learned to play the bagpipes in 2006 with Ricardo Coelho and studied traditional music at Sjöviks Folkhögskola school, Sweden. He was founder of the Míscaros group and played in several street animation groups. He set to music the show "Canticle of Canticles" at TeatroEnsaio and "Life of the Great D. Quixote of La Mancha by Gordo Sancho Panza" at Teatro do Bolhão. He taught bagpipes in Miranda do Douro and Cabeceiras de Basto. He also has experience in the production and logistics of major events such as the Festival de Música Tradicional de Quintandona (current Festa do Caldo de Quintandona) of which he was part of the group of founders, Diç que hai Fiesta nel Pobo, Il Burro il Gueiteiro, Feira de Iberian Musical Instruments and the 1st International Forum Gaia Todo um Mundo. He was part of Coletivo Identidades, he is a musician in the group Gaiteiros da Ponte Velha; is a founder and trainer in Cardo-Amarelo dedicated to teaching traditional Portuguese music.
He carried out several community projects such as Há festa na Aldeia (2015, 2016, 2018) and International Forum Gaia Todo o Mundo (2017, 2018 and 2019).
Finally, together with Carmina Repas Gonçalves, he is a member of the duo Cardo-Roxo, a growing group with four albums published, and which has the support of Antena 2, Antena 1 and RTP 2.
Carmina Repas Gonçalves
Carmina Repas Gonçalves began her musical studies at a young age, having studied piano, violin, singing and viola da gamba at the Concertino music school and later at the Lisbon Conservatory of Music. He sang in several choirs and directed the student choir of the Ana Mangericão Dance School for 2 years, having later taken an intensive course in choral conducting at the Piaget Institute. Alongside his interest and taste for music and for teaching it, he developed other artistic skills such as dance (studying for several years at the Ana Mangericão Dance School, where he would develop in various types of dance) and theater, finishing a degree in Theater Production at Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in 2009.
Despite having had some interesting professional and academic experiences in theater and dance, he ended up deciding that his artistic path would be dedicated mainly to music, however currently using many of the tools acquired in that learning process.
The beginning of the study of viola da gamba (2004) coincided with the discovery of ancient music and traditional music, themes on which he has focused since then. With regard to the study of early music, he graduated in 2013 from the Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Especionário through which he had the chance to do 1 year of Erasmus in the Kungliga Musikhögskola i Stockholm (Sweden). He has thus played with some renowned musicians and groups such as Concerto Atlântico (dir. Pedro Caldeira Cabral), Sete Lágrimas (dir. Filipe Faria and Sérgio Peixoto), Arte Mínima (dir. Pedro Sousa Silva), O Bando de Surunyo (dir. by Hugo Sanches) and Affetti d'Amore (a trio with Helena Raposo and Sandra Medeiros). As far as traditional music is concerned, he had the opportunity to study for a year at Sjövik Folkhögskolan in Sweden and has been doing some research work as an autodidact. His work in this area involves, above all, the research and dissemination of traditional Portuguese music, work that can be seen mainly through his duo Cardo-Roxo (with which he has given concerts throughout the country and abroad and has already released the albums Alvorada , Vai-te Cuca, Volto Já and No Monte das Oliveiras) and the Cardo-Yellow educational project based in Vila Nova de Gaia, at the Ginásio Clube de Mafamude.
Alongside her artistic activity, she worked as an assistant for the Ancient Music Course at ESMAE in which she organized concerts, courses and masterclasses and was a music teacher for dancers at the Ginasiano Escola de Dança
She is currently professor of viola da gamba at the Coimbra Conservatory of Music.