Helder Filipe Gonçalves was born in Castelo Branco, Portugal, in 1976. In that city he ended the Piano Conservatory Course. After a brief passage as a student at the Jazz School of Hot Club de Portugal, he completed the Degree in Composition at the Lisbon Music Superior School, where he studied with Christopher Bochmann, António Sousa Dias and António Pinho Vargas, among others.
Completed a Pos-Graduate Diploma in Educational Technology, from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Lisbon, becoming a trainer in the field of new technologies for teaching music. He attended PhD seminars in Communication Sciences at the New University of Lisbon, starting a thesis related to acousmatic music in audiovisual contexts, with the guidance of the composer Tomás Henriques. After moving to the University of Beira Interior he presently prepares a PhD in the area of sound for film, with the guidance of Professor Vasco Diogo.
Presently he teaches Composition and Auditory Training in the Music Courses at ESART, Sound and Acoustics / Sound Design in the Film Courses at UBI. He has been teaching Analysis and Composition Techniques in the Conservatories of Covilhã and Belmonte. In his compositions, premiered in places like Lisbon, Guarda, Belmonte, Covilhã, Fundão, Montemor-o- Novo or Nancy, is easy to find programmatic intentions and the influence of film music and of cinematic structuring processes. He has created soundtracks for plays premiered by “Teatro das Beiras” (Covilhã). Tends to enhance the listener's experience as a means of enriching the sound result metaphorically and/or its relationship with the images and narrative.