CARDOSO, Lea Brooklyn

Lea Brooklyn Cardoso is a Portuguese-American composer and musician, born in Iowa, United States, in 1986. Alongside her early studies of piano and bagpipes, she studied Geological and Mining Engineering before completing a degree in composition at the Lisbon School of Music (Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa). She later continued her composition studies at the Malmö Academy of Music in Sweden.
Cardoso’s music explores vocal writing, improvisation, experimentation and unconventional uses of instruments. Her works have been performed in Portugal and the United States by ensembles including the Lisbon Sinfonietta and Coro Ricercare. Her orchestral work Do mar de longe, written for the Swedish chamber orchestra Musica Vitae, was premiered in 2014. The piece has been described as a restrained, single-movement composition distinguished by subtle changes of instrumental colour