cello
Maria Soeiro is a freelancer with Phion, Orkest van Gelderland & Overijssel, Holland Symfonie Orkest, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Glasgow), Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra (Belfast, UK), Ars Musica Orkest, Gulbenkian Orchestra (Portugal), Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra and is principal of the KlankKast Orkest. She holds a Master in Cello Performance from HKU Utrechts Conservatorium (2019-2023), where she studied with Timora Rosler and was the teaching assistant of Jeroen den Herder, a Master on Music Performance and Research: Cello from Universidad Alfonso X, Madrid 2017) and post-graduate studies with Xavier Gagnepain (Paris 2018). Maria is a founding member of the Utrecht Piano Trio (2021), being awarded 1st prize at the Godella’s International Chamber Music Competition (Valencia, 2025), 3rd at the IX International Music Competition Triomphe de l’Art (Brussels, 2024), 3rd in the Kamermuziek Concours Gelre (2023), having performed Beethoven Triple Concerto with the Young Talent Orchestra Rotterdam (2024). Performing in Concertgebouw Amsterdam, TivoliVredenburg (Utrecht), Concertgebouw de Vereeniging (Nijmegen). Special projects include Side by Side with Concertgebouw Orkest and the Irish Chamber Orchestra Academy.
Maria, born in Lisbon (Portugal, 1995), started her cello studies at 6 in the Lisbon Metropolitan Conservatory of Music, a pioneer orchestra school. Since early participated in orchestral classes and workshops abroad. From 2013 to 2017 she studied her bachelors at the National Academy of Advanced Orchestral Studies in Lisbon with Paulo Gaio Lima. She attended Masterclasses with Pieter Wispelwey, Gary Hoffman, Johannes Moser, Claudio Bohórquez, Peter Bruns, Leonid Gorokhov, António Meneses and Xavier Gagnepain, among others. From the age of 9 she studied chamber music with the Soeiro Trio, with her older siblings (violin and piano), having studied with some of the most acclaimed international musicians and in masterclasses in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. She is a sailor having started in Optimist at the age of 7 in Lisbon, awarded regional, national and European trophies from 9 to 15. She likes to work with children and learners of cello of all ages. Her teaching experience, favoring memory and sound quality, developed in Utrecht with students from 6 on. Working, since 2019, with the Academie Muzikaal Talent directed by Chris Duindam, she participates in his Cugnon Project to connect young musical talents with professional musicians in chamber music at concerts and at the Cugnon International Chamber Music Festival.