Hugo Ribeiro was born in Lisbon in 1983 and began his musical studies at the Conservatório de Música D. Dinisin Odivelas, where he studied with Vera Belozorovitch (Piano) and Carlos Marecos (Composition Techniques and Analysis).
He gained his composition degree in 2005 at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa studying under Luís Tinoco, António Pinho Vargas, Christopher Bochmann, among others.
In 2007 he obtained his MMus degree in composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he studied with Simon Bainbridge and Paul Patterson. Whilst attending this institution he won the ‘Lena Pritchard Green’ and ‘Ismena Holland’ awards. He also had the opportunity of working with the composers Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Martin Bresnick, David Sawer and Bent Sørensen and with COMA London, BBC Singers and Royal Academy Soloists.
Hugo Ribeiro has participated in piano Master Classes with Vladimir Viardo, Helena Sá e Costa and Vitali Dotesenko, as well as in composition courses with Emmanuel Nunes, Salvatore Sciarrino, Philippe Hurel, John Chowning.
At the 2004 summer composition courses in Darmstadt, he had the privilege of working with Bryan Ferneyhough, Georg Friedrich Haas, Toshio Hosokawa and Tadeusz Wielecki.
Hugo Ribeiro’s compositions have been distinguished with winning 1st Prize in the 2nd International Composition Competition Póvoa de Varzim ‘Orchestra Category’(2007), the national competition Opera in Creation 2008 at the S. Luiz Theatre in Lisbon and 1st Prize at the International Composer Pyramid competition (2010).
With the piece ‘et sequentes’ he obtained the 1st Prize in the 2nd International Composition Prize Fernando Lopes-Graça, 2011. This prize is financed by the Government of Portugal.
Hugo has finished his PhD at Canterbury Christ Church University in January 2012.