BIOGRAPHY

CAIO AZEVEDO  is a Brazilian composer, cellist, performer, and conductor based in Munich. His practice is embodied in reinvention, shaped through storytelling, crowded fantasies, and carnival. Critics have described his work as “original and versatile” (Diapason), a “striking mental sculpture, interwoven with emotions and certainties” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), and “suffused with colour” (Classical Magazine), while being “distinguished by an immediate poetic radiance” (Rebecca Saunders).

These works have since been performed across Europe, the United States, and Brazil by ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, the SWR Symphonieorchester, Ensemble Musikfabrik, ensemble recherche, International Contemporary Ensemble, and the MIVOS String Quartet, among others, with his viola concerto Marionnette receiving First Prize at the prestigious Concours de Genève (2024) and being performed at Victoria Hall. In the same period, he was awarded the Concerto Prize as Emerging Talent (2024) by the Brazilian magazine Concerto, and more recently the Wolfgang-Rihm-Stipendium (2025/26).

His interdisciplinary practice further extends into theatre, opera and ballet, including works such as Glas, a children’s chamber opera at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein with a libretto by Friederike Karig; Macbeth, a ballet for orchestra in three acts for the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz, Finita, developed with the Theaterakademie August Everding and director Gineke Pranger; among others.

Alongside concert works, he has also been working extensively in theatre and music for theatre, including projects for the Münchner Biennale (Träns, 2018) and for the Landestheater Tübingen (Garland, 2024; Hiob, 2026).

At the same time, Caio maintains an active presence as a performer of new music, especially in Germany, as the cellist of the Zentaur-Quartett and as a member of the Neues Kollektiv München, two ensembles dedicated to contemporary repertoire and collaborative creation, while also working independently as a performer. 

Finally, as a conductor, he has premiered works such as the oratorio Embrace and the short opera Coded Bodies by Abigél Varga, among others, and recently worked as assistant conductor on the opera Awakening by Param Vir at the Opera House in Bonn. 

Caio began his musical journey as a member of the social project NEOJIBA, where he had the privilege of performing as an orchestral musician alongside renowned soloists on international tours across the United States and Europe, including Martha Argerich, Midori, Maxim Vengerov, Lang Lang, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, among others. He then studied cello and composition in Brazil before continuing his academic formation in Munich, where he completed his Master’s and post-master’s degrees in composition with Moritz Eggert. 

He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including first prize at the Wolfgang Jacobi Composition Competition, second prize and the audience prize at the First Composition Prize of Bahia, and the Orlandus Lassus Scholarship. He has also taken part in prestigious residencies such as the Cité des Arts in Paris, the Tanglewood Music Center as a Leonard Bernstein Fellow, and the International Winter Festival of Campos do Jordão, and was selected for the young_professionals program of Ensemble Modern. In 2026, he will be in residence at MacDowell (USA) and will present a new orchestral work at the Lucerne Festival with the Lucerne Contemporary Orchestra.