Vinicius Lira Coutinho
Born in Curitiba, Brazil, in 1994, Vinicius Lira began his higher music studies in 2012 at the School of Music and Fine Arts of Paraná, under the direction of Maestro Giampiero Pilatti. He later studied with Jessica Dalsant and attended masterclasses with Emannuel Pahud, Pirmin Grehl, Emily Beynon, Michel Belavance, and Jonathan Kelly, among others.
He has participated in several national competitions, such as Prelúdio and Pre-Estreia on TV Cultura. In 2015, he won the second prize and was selected as a revelation in the III Youth Soloists Competition of the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra.
He attended the Reina Sofía School of Music between 2016 and 2021 under the tutelage of Professor Jacques Zoon, where he received the Diploma for the most outstanding student of his chair from H. M. Queen Sofía in the 2017-18 course. He later furthered his training with Jessica Dalsant. He has attended masterclasses by Emannuel Pahud, Pirmin Grehl, Emily Beynon, Fenwick Smith, Carol Wincenc, Michel Belavance, Bulent Evcil, Nicole Esposito, and Jonathan Kelly, among others.
As a student of the Reina Sofía School of Music, he has been part of the Freixenet Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Víctor Pablo Pérez, Plácido Domingo, and András Schiff. He has also been a member of the Sinfonietta, under the baton of Johannes Kalitzke, Baldur Brönnimann, and Jorge Rotter, and that of the Harmonie Ensemble, the Orfeo Sextet and Quintet, and the Casa de la Moneda Scarlatti Quintet. He is currently part of the Cosan Ensemble and the Barroco Ensemble.He was a flutist and piccolo player in the Paraná Symphony Orchestra between 2013 and 2015, and has collaborated as a soloist with the Ponta Grossa Symphony Orchestra between 2011 and 2014, and with the symphonic band of the Curitiba Music Office in 2016.
Actively involved in teaching, Vinicius Lira has been a professor at the Monteverdi conservatory and, since last year, he has been teaching at Musicarium - Brazilian Philharmonic Academy, a project born in southern Brazil with the aim of providing quality education for children and young people.