Cor de Noies
Montserrat Meneses Sendrós
Conductor of the Cor de Noies de l'Orfeó Català
Born in El Vendrell (1973), Montserrat Meneses Sendrós is a choral director and music teacher. She studied at the Escola Municipal de Música Pau Casals del Vendrell and at the conservatories of Tarragona and Badalona. She trained as a choral director with the teachers Manel Cabero, Josep Prats, Josep Vila, Mireia Barrera, Pierre Cao, Laszlo Heltay and Johan Duijck. She has conducted various choirs throughout Catalonia, including Joves Veus del Vendrell (which she founded in 1989), Orfeó del Vendrell (1999-2005), Coral Allegro (1998-2018) and Coral Genciana de Barcelona (1996-2001), Coral Regina de Manlleu (1998-2018) and Cor de Cambra de la Diputació de Girona (2005-2008). She has also been deputy director of the Orfeó Català (2022-2024). Between 2002 and 2008 she was assistant and main coach in different editions of El Mesías Participativo in Barcelona, Granada and Seville.
In the pedagogical aspect, she is a choral singing teacher at the EMMPAC in El Vendrell, she has been a choral conducting teacher at the SCIC and the FCEC and an associate professor at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona. She has taught courses and workshops on choral conducting and choral singing pedagogy throughout Catalonia. For ten years she was co-director of the Cantània programme at the Auditori de Barcelona, and she has been co-director and artistic director of the Canta Gran programme for seventeen years, a project co-produced by the Auditorium and Barcelona City Council that recently received the Anselm Clavé Award for the best social transformation project.
She currently directs the Cor Zóngora and the Cor Veus Blanques of l'EMMPAC of El Vendrell –both founded by her–, the Coral Cantiga of Barcelona and the Cor de Noies of Orfeó Català.
Artistic team
Maria Mauri
Pianist of the Cor de Noies of Orfeó Català
Born in Vic (1991), Maria Mauri studied piano and conducting at the Catalonia College of Music (ESMUC). She rounded off her education with studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she completed a master's degree specialising in collaborative piano. She has studied with professors Vladislav Bronevetszky and Nelly Ben-Or (piano), Johan Duijck and Josep Vila i Casañas (choral conducting), Salvador Brotons (orchestral conducting), and Pamela Lidiard, Andrew West and Francisco Poyato (lied). Mauri has also studied singing, and one of her great passions is vocal music, which has led her to specialise in the vocal and choral repertoire.
She has accompanied a number of Catalan choirs: Cor Madrigal, conducted by Pere Lluís Biosca; the Cor Jove Nacional de Catalunya, with conductors Lluís Vilamajó, Mireia Barrera and Catherine Simonpietri; Cor Bruckner Barcelona, conducted by Júlia Sesé, and Capella Nacional de Catalunya, with musical direction by Lluís Vilamajó and Jordi Savall, among other ensembles. Mauri has also performed in lied and opera recitals with different singers, including Josep-Ramon Olivé, Enric Martinez-Castignani, Núria Vinyals and Kathryn Smith. She has performed at festivals and cinemas throughout Catalonia, as well as in England and France. She has worked at the Liceu Conservatory as a pianist for vocal repertoire.
She has been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships, including from the Fundació Victoria de los Ángeles, the Guildhall Scholarship Awards and the Anna Riera Scholarship, and was involved in recording the album Pau & Victòria.
She currently combines her work as a pianist at the Orfeó Català Cor de Noies, conducted by Montserrat Meneses, with her projects as a conductor, singer and teacher. Since 2019, Mauri has been a classical piano teacher at the Taller de Músics School for Higher Music Education, as well as head conductor for the chamber choirs Noctes and ARSinNOVA. On the other hand, she sings in several vocal ensembles, focusing mainly on ancient music and contemporary music, including collaborations with Companyia Musical and Marina Herlop.