Mateus Colares de Souza

Brazilian oboist and cor anglais player based in London, Mateus graduated from the Royal College of Music with a Bachelor of Music as a Herbert Howells & Thomas Fielden Scholar and a David Laing Scholar. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Performance at the RCM, continuing his studies with the support of the same award. Having begun his undergraduate degree at the University of São Paulo, he transferred directly into the third year at the RCM, where he has since studied with Olivier Stankiewicz, John Roberts, and Christine Pendrill.

Mateus recently recorded Michael Fine’s Triple Concerto for Oboe Section with the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra at Henry Wood Hall. His solo career began in Brazil, where he won the Porto Alegre Symphony Orchestra Young Soloists Competition in 2019 and, in 2022, the ‘Orquestra Experimental de Repertório’ Young Soloists Competition, later performing Lebrun’s Oboe Concerto No 1 with the orchestra.

In 2025, he won First Prize at the Grimaldi Cor Anglais Competition, performing his own arrangement for cor anglais and piano. He also arranges for wind quintet, with works premiered by the Colares Ensemble, of which he is a founding member. The ensemble won the 2026 RCM Wind Ensemble Competition and was a semi-finalist in the 21st Lyon International Chamber Music Competition and the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition. At the RCM, Mateus has also collaborated with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective.

Before moving to the UK, he was Principal Oboe of the Guarulhos Symphony Orchestra and a guest musician with professional orchestras across Brazil. From 2023, he was a ‘Cultura Artística’ scholar through the Magda Tagliaferro Scholarship, recording a solo recital at Monteverdi Studio in 2024.