João Barros is a holder of the master’s degree in Choral Conducting and the bachelor’s degree in Music Education and Choral conducting from Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. He studied with the conductor Paulo Lourenço. His musical studies started at Conservatório D. Dinis where he studied piano with Elsa Cabral. In 2012, João studied Singing at Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional with Nuno Villalonga. In 2013, as an Erasmus student, João attended the Liszt Academy Kodály Intezet, in Kecskemét, Hungary, studying Choral Conducting with László Nemes and singing with Renáta Darázs.

As a singer, João has recently sung with Tenso Europe Chamber Choir, Officium Ensemble, Coro Gulbenkian, Meesters en Gezellen and he has performed in 12 different countries.

João has participated in several choral conducting masterclasses all over Europe where he most recently worked with Georg Grün, Neil Ferris, André Van der Merwe, Romãns Vanags and Brett Scott.

In September 2017, João was invited by “World Masters in China” to lead masterclasses and workshops for more than 4000 music teachers and choral conductors. He worked with choirs of variable age and level and conducted over 50 choirs all over China, in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Lanzhou, Jinan, and many other cities.

In 2018, João established Nova Era Vocal Ensemble and became the artistic director of Coro ISCTE and Coro de Câmara Outros Cantos.

In 2019, Nova Era Vocal Ensemble won two gold medals at the Festival Coral de Verão and a “Choir of choirs” prize, gold medal, at Festival Vocal Art Choir Competition. In the same year, João was offered an Interkultur scholarship for “outstanding conducting achievements” and got an opportunity to conduct the Rundfunk-Jugenchor Wernigerode in Germany.

Since 2018, he has been leading the musical workshops for music teachers “música na escola” organized by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Since September 2019, João is guiding the teachers training “Zoltán Kodály’s – music education and methodology” for the music teachers in Cidade da Praia and Mindelo, Cabo Verde, in association with the Hungarian Embassy in Portugal and the Ministry of Education of Cabo Verde.

Currently he studies with Daniel Reuss and Kaspars Putniņš.