Biography
Yuri Marchese is a guitarist active in both the classical and electric fields. Born in Brazil in 1989, he began playing and performing in bands at the age of 12. The electric guitar was his main instrument until the age of 16, when he gradually transitioned to the classical guitar. He currently maintains an active artistic career with both instruments and has been developing a concert-oriented repertoire for the electric guitar.
During his first years, he studied with Marco Tureta, Inácio Rabaioli, Natanael Fonseca, and Fábio Zanon. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the Universidade Estadual de Londrina (2010). He completed two master’s degrees in Portugal: a Master’s in Performance from the Universidade de Aveiro (2016), under the supervision of Paulo Vaz de Carvalho, and a Master’s in Music Education from the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa (2025), supervised by João Pedro Duarte. In the latter, he developed a project aimed at expanding the technical repertoire for all conservatory levels, including original studies of his own, such as the Estudos Idiomáticos, as well as collaborative works with other guitarist-composers from Brazil and Portugal.
He gave his first international tour at the age of 22 and, since 2011, has performed in major cities in Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and the Czech Republic. He has appeared in festivals and concert series such as Música no Museu (Rio de Janeiro), Festival de Música de Londrina, Série Palcos Musicais (Londrina), Temporada Ouro Verde (with OSUEL), Young Prag Festival (Czech Republic), Festival Ponto de Guitarra (Vila Real), Irmão Violão (Aveiro, Porto, and Vila Real), Festival Zêzere Arts, and Templo da Música (Tomar).
Between 2012 and 2017, he received more than a dozen awards in national and international competitions, including First Prize at Concurso FITO (São Paulo, 2012), Second Prize at the Concurso Nacional Villa-Lobos (2013), First Prize at the IX Concurso Jovens Músicos – Música no Museu (Rio de Janeiro, 2017), and First Prize at the Concurso Internacional de Guitarra de Leiria (Portugal, 2017). He was a scholarship recipient at the Festival Internacional de Inverno de Campos do Jordão between 2010 and 2014, where he participated in masterclasses with Zoran Dukić, Michael Lewin, José Antonio Escobar, Eduardo Fernandez, João Luiz Rezende, and Maria Livia São Marcos.
He has been actively collaborating in the creation of new works and in chamber music for both classical and electric guitar, premiering pieces by composers such as Amilcar Vasques-Dias, Alfredo Teixeira, Eli Camargo, and Jaroslav Pelikan, as well as giving Portuguese premieres of works by Bouny, Mackey, and Carrilho. He is a Musicamera artist, performing both as a soloist and in chamber formations throughout Portugal. In 2025, he toured Brazil with the renowned Quarteto Lopes-Graça.
He has been teaching guitar since 2002, prioritizing private instruction and training young musicians who have gone on to pursue artistic careers in Brazil. He is currently a classical guitar and guitar orchestra teacher at the Academia de Música de Lisboa, at its Oeiras and Restelo campuses.
Artistically, Marchese moves between the traditional classical guitar repertoire and contemporary music, while also engaging with elements of Brazilian nationalism and crossover repertoire, expanding the expressive possibilities of the instrument.
