Dinis Sousa
Conductor
Dinis Sousa’s inaugural season as Principal Conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia culminated in his BBC Proms debut with the orchestra in August 2022, following a critically acclaimed season during which they earned praise for their “incisive, ultra-passionate playing” (The Times) and worked with soloists such as Elisabeth Leonskaja, Anastasia Kobekina, and Louis Schwizgebel. Highlights of the coming season include multiple projects with Dame Sarah Connolly, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Nicola Benedetti, Benjamin Grosvenor, and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, as well as a concert at the Tongyeong Festival in Korea.
Dinis is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Orquestra XXI, an award-winning orchestra which brings together some of the best young Portuguese musicians from around Europe. Orquestra XXI has already established itself as one of the leading performing groups in Portugal, appearing regularly in its main concert halls. Recent highlights include opening the Gulbenkian Foundation season and appearing at Centro Cultural de Belém’s festival “Dias da Música” for a televised concert with Orquestra XXI and the Gulbenkian Choir, performing Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri.
Dinis has worked closely with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his ensembles — the English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique and the Monteverdi Choir — culminating in his appointment as the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras’ first-ever Assistant Conductor in 2018. Highlights of his tenure include co-conducting the Monteverdi Choir in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette at the BBC Proms, and conducting the English Baroque Soloists in Colombia.
As a guest-conductor, recent and forthcoming highlights include projects with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Euskadiko Orkestra, Edmonton Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra,and Sinfonietta Riga. In summer 2022, he made his Nevill Holt Opera debut (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and his USA debut conducting two programmes at the Bach Carmel Festival. Dinis’ core repertoire is firmly rooted in the Classical to early Romantic eras — with recent performances of Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Schumann, Mozart — but also regularly conducts a wide range of music from Bach and Rameau through to 20th century and new music.
Dinis studied conducting with Sian Edwards and Timothy Redmond and piano with Philip Jenkins and Martin Roscoe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he was Conducting Fellow. While at Guildhall, he conducted several different projects, including Bach’s St. John Passion at Milton Court and a staged production of Harrison Birtwistle’s Down by the Greenwood Side at the Silk Street Theatre.
In recognition of his work with Orquestra XXI, Dinis was awarded the title of Knight of the Order of Prince Henry in Portugal.
