Biography

Helena Sousa Estévez (1993, Galicia, Spain), is a professional accordionist who covers various music styles and is specialised in the field of contemporary classical music. She has a keen interest in the collaboration with composers to work as a soloist or being part of orchestras or ensembles.

In 2015 Helena obtained her Bachelor degree in Music at Musikene – Higher Music School of the Basque Country (San Sebastián, Spain), with professors Iñaki Alberdi, Miren Iñarga and Aitor Furundarena. In 2017 she finished her Master of Music at HEAR - Haute École des Arts du Rhin (Strasbourg, France) with professors Pascal Contet, Craig Goodman and Martin Gester.

Since the beginning of her career, Helena has participated in numerous national and international competitions, among them: the Certamen Nacional de Acordeón (Ourense, Spain), winning the first prize in one of the contest’s categories between 2005 and 2010 and therefore allowing her to represent Spain in the Trophée Mondial de l'Accordéon in France (2005), Serbia (2006), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2007), Portugal (2009) and Spain (2010); Torneo Internazionale di Musica (Verona, Italy, 2010 and Paris, France, 2012); Arrasate Hiria International Accordion Competition (Arrasate, Spain, 2014) and Juventudes Musicales (Torroella de Montgrí, 2014 and Tui, Spain, 2016) where she was a finalist.

She has also attended several masterclasses with musicians such as Juan Carlos Cárcamo, Pedro Pascual, Aníbal Freire, Alexey Artemyev, Anne Landa, Oleg Sharov, Vyacheslav Semionov, Víctor Prieto, Jesús Torres, José María Sánchez-Verdú, Marco García de Paz, Veli Kujala, Geir Draugsvoll or Iñaki Alberdi, among others.

Helena has been part of international projects and festivals such as Jazzdor 2015 (Strasbourg, France), Festival Musica 2017 (Strasbourg, France), North Sea Round Town 2018 (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) Codarts Composers Festival 2018 and 2019 (Rotterdam, The Netherlands), Arsmondo Festival 2019 (Strasbourg, France), Thy Chamber Music Festival 2019 (Thy, Denmark); IMPULS Festival 2019 (Halle, Magdeburg and Leipzig, Germany) Festival de l’Épau 2020 (Le Mans, France) Festival Musica 2020 (Strasbourg, France) Xornadas de Música Contemporánea 2021 (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), Festival Musica 2021 (Kehl, Germany), or Festival Cineuropa 2021 (Santiago de Compostela, Spain) premiering different works and performing with orchestras or ensembles such as Real Filharmonía de Galicia, DoelenEnsemble, Ensemble Linea, Ensemble Intercolor, AKOM Ensemble or Khaer Duo under the direction of Timothy Brock, Arie van Beek, Jean-Philippe Wurtz, Natalia Salinas, Roberto Beltrán-Zavala or Sander Teepen.

Helena is a current member of different chamber music groups, among them:  Ensemble Intercolor, a quintet based in France and a duo with double bassist Alejandra Rony, also based in The Netherlands. Helena combines her activity as a soloist and ensemble performer with teaching. Among the projects she has realised, she has commissioned the reduction for piano and accordion of the Concierto para Acordeón y Orquesta (2004/2019) by the composer Jesús Torres, a concerto recorded with the pianist Daniel Leiro Castro in 2020 thanks to the financial support of the HEAR - Haute École des Arts du Rhin.

Helena currently lives in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.