Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins is a composer, conductor, and arts administrator living in Toronto, ON.
Featuring a wide variety of instrumentations and colours, Maria-Eduarda’s music is multidimensional – it questions the nature of time, boundaries between simplicity and complexity in sound, and historical relationships between past, present, and future. Ultimately, Maria-Eduarda aims to reflect the complexities of her contemporary world and culture in her pieces.
Born and raised between two Brazilian capitals (Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre), Maria-Eduarda did not have access to musical education until her adolescence, when she discovered an ability to create medieval-sounding melodies. Since then, she completed a bachelor’s degree in music composition at UFRGS (with Celso Loureiro Chaves), a master’s degree at University of Victoria (with Dániel Biró and Christopher Butterfield), and she is currently pursuing a doctorate degree at University of Toronto, having composer Gary Kulesha as her supervisor. Maria-Eduarda’s involvement with the national music scene led her to stay in Canada, becoming a citizen of the country in 2023.
Her music has been featured in festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Netherlands) and SALT Festival (Canada), and received honours such as the Friends of Canadian Music Award. She has collaborated with performers such as Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Gemma New, Quatuor Bozzini, among others, in cities across North America, South America, and Europe.
Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins 