Artur Miranda Azzi is a Brazilian guitarist, composer and researcher.
Since 2016 he has resided in Germany, where he came with the assistance of a DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) scholarship to do the Künstlerisches Aufbaustudium, under the guitarist, composer and musicologist Prof. Dr. Tilman Hopstock, and a master’s degree under Prof. Christopher Brandt and Prof. Lucas Fels (Arditti Quartet), which he successfully concluded with First Class Honors.
As one of the most prominent classical guitarists in Brazil, he played concerts all over the country, and was also active in his hometown Belo Horizonte as artistic director of the festival “Violões pela Cidade“, a project with a strong social direction which organized more than 40 classical guitar concerts around the City, including in many peripheral areas.
Artur Miranda Azzi initiated his musical studies learning from his father, then later completed the Bachelor Degree with First Class Honors at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, under Prof. Dr. Fernando Araújo and Prof. Dr. Flavio Barbeitas. Besides that, he had private classes with the guitarist and conductor Fabio Zanon.
Along his career, Artur Miranda Azzi has been awarded many prizes. In 2012, he won the BDMG Young Musician Prize, and in 2014 he won the first prize in the three most traditional Guitar Competitions in Brazil: Souza Lima Competition, The Villa Lobos Conservatoire Competition, and the Musicalis Guitar Competition. Later in Germany he was awarded the Prinzessin Margareth Von Hessen Competition, Tallin International Guitar Competition, and was part of the Yehudi Menuhin – Live Music Now! Program.
As a performer, Artur Miranda Azzi is interested in confronting historical material with contemporary sound structures, as well as seeking new interpretative models for both past and contemporary works. Thus, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts plays a central role in his interpretative approach, as well as a “mannerist tendency” that privileges the tension and instability of the material rather than the balance and clarity typical of classicizing structures.
Besides worldwide concert presentations, Artur Miranda Azzi has been also active as a composer and researcher, with emphasis on exploring new ways of thinking an instrument and performing the body that question already imposed models. Added to this is the central role of the analytical tools of musicology as well as the transdisciplinary approach relying mainly on the French post-structuralist philosophy.
Artur Miranda Azzi taught guitar and chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main and is frequently invited for lectures, courses and masterclasses. He is currently doing a PhD at the WWU Münster in cooperation with the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
