Ed Côrtes is a Brazilian musician and composer, son of Edmundo Villani-Côrtes, great Brazilian composer and maestro, a former member of the Brazilian Academy of Music and Efigenia Côrtes, lyrical singer and soloist from São Paulo Opera Theatre during 25 years.

 

He started as a clarinet player in classical orchestras and soloist contests and evolved to jazz as a saxophone and clarinet player. At Berklee College (Boston) he started composing inspired by Alex Ulanovsky, his teacher.

 

After a short time in Europe, Ed had two premieres of big symphonic pieces with the São Paulo Jazz-Symphonic Orchestra. Those concerts projected him into the film composing business.

 

Starting with advertising, jumping to pop music producing and to cinema music, since 1993 Ed has become one of the most awarded and recognized composers and producers in Brazil.

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In 1997, as a composer, he created his first soundtrack for “Traição” and right after to “A Train Goes Through", the first short film by director Fernando Meirelles.

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In 1998 founded together with Antonio Pinto, Supersonica, an audio production company where they worked together in many projects for advertisng and movie soundtracks such as “City of God”, by Fernando Meirelles and Behind The Sun, by Walter Salles.

 

City of God was Oscar nominee in 4 categories and awarded in many festivals around the world, featuring in the list of the 100 best movies of all times.

 

After splitting the partnership with Antonio in 2002, Ed founded Tentaculo, a studio and production office that is recognized as one of the best and most creative studios in Brazil working for on and off line adverts, cinema, theatre, music production and ballet. 

 

Worked with success pop bands having reached the Brazilian top hits many times.

 

Besides working as a film composer Ed Côrtes also has a strong presence making music for ballet and contemporary dance. His pieces have been danced all over the world.

 

Since 2019 founded TentaculoREC where he develops projects as a screen writer and film producer. The first two projects: Flush (short) and By Those Hands That Lead Me (film) got more than 30 international awards altogether.