GIANIRA FERRARA
Born in Palermo, Italy, in 1983. She graduated in Musicology at the University of Palermo, with an ethnomusicological dissertation about the adufes, square drums played by women especially in the Beira-Baixa region in Portugal. Her ethnographic interest in diverse cultural universes brought her to further her training in the field of ethnomusicology. Growing up on an island made it inevitable that she always wanted to live in cities near the sea. She moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where she dedicated herself to researching on different Portuguese, Angolan and Mozambique performance practices. She got her master’s degree at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, with an investigation focused on the relationship between music and memory among the so-called “decolonization migrants”. She is currently finishing her PhD in the scope of which she conducted research in Mozambique on timbila, a performative practice related to the chope people. She works at the Ethnomusicology Institute of Lisbon (INET-md) where she is involved in scientific research projects related to Mozambican performative practices. She has collaborated, professionally and voluntarily, with several associations focused on the dissemination of music and dance. Her growing interest in collaborative research methodologies and her professional experience with artists and researchers has motivated her to create Quintal.
