The Brussels-born Portuguese soprano Maria Portela Larisch moves with extraordinary versatility between different genres and epochs, with a particular focus on early and contemporary music.

After initial piano and violin lessons, she was accepted into the children's choir of the Théâtre de La Monnaie at the age of eight. She then received her first singing lessons with Eunice Arias before she began her studies at the IMEP in Namur in 2015. In 2016, she joined the choir academy of La Monnaie (MM Academy) where she sang her first small roles, such as the little vixen in Janáček's Foxie! The Cunning Little Vixen.

These engagements enabled her to work with renowned conductors and directors such as Michel Plasson, Antonello Manacorda, Alain Altinoglu, Paolo Carignani, Hervé Niquet, Ben Glassberg, Andrea Breth, Romeo Castellucci and Christophe Coppens.

She has been studying at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln since 2018 - first in the class of Prof. Christoph Prégardien, where she completed her master's degree in Lied interpretation in 2022, and then with Prof. Kai Wessel, with whom she completed her master's degree in music theatre in 2024. Since 2020, she has been studying vocal pedagogy with a focus on performance and music education.

She has recently performed as a soloist at Berlin Art Week, the Kölner Philharmonie, the UFO at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Anneliese Brost Musikforum in Bochum. In the 2024/25 season, she took on the role of Minerva in Offenbach's Orphée aux Enfers as a scholarship holder at the Aachen Theatre. She also sings regularly with renowned ensembles such as the Chœur de Chambre de Namur and ChorwerkRuhr.

As a founding member of the trio Gilu (soprano, violin, harp), she released her first solo CD in 2022. Together with pianist Jou-an Chen, she was awarded 1st prize at the HfMT Cologne's internal song competition in 2023. In 2024, the duo was also selected by the association Vrienden van het Lied and is looking forward to a series of concerts in the Netherlands.