Rafaela Carvalho is a Portuguese oboist based in Berlin, where she is currently studying for her Master’s degree at the Barenboim-Said Akademie with Cristina Gómez Godoy.
Her work with the Staatskapelle Berlin includes guest appearances at the Staatsoper (Preußens Hofmusik), concerts with its wind quintet and the principal oboe position in its Orchestra Academy. She has also been a guest with the Magdeburgische Philharmonie and plays regularly with the Preußisches Kammerorchester.
In November 2025 she led the oboe section of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra at the KKL Luzern, performing with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Anastasia Kobekina. Earlier that year, as first oboe of the Grafenegg Festival Academy, she performed at the Wolkenturm under the baton of Jörg Widmann. In January 2024 she joined the Remix Ensemble at Casa da Música in Porto under Peter Rundel.
Rafaela has performed at the Pierre Boulez Saal several times, among others with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and had the opportunity to play in a wind quintet with Emmanuel Pahud. Other artists she has worked with include Daniel Barenboim, Radek Baborák, Martin Spangenberg, Mor Biron, Peter Askim, Hans Casteleyn, Giuseppe Mentuccia and Russell Watson.
Her concerts have also taken her to the Berliner Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus Berlin. She has played with the Orquestra Filarmónica Portuguesa and, in December 2024 and April 2025, with Orquestra XXI, and took part in the Remix Ensemble Summer Academy in 2023 and the Lucerne Festival Academy in 2024, where she played under Sir George Benjamin and Beat Furrer.
Bringing music to people who rarely hear it live is close to her heart. She has performed with Musethica, and since 2025 she has been a scholarship holder of Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin.
Her musical path began at the Academia de Música de Viana do Castelo and led on to Paulo Areias at the Escola Profissional Artística do Alto Minho and Ricardo Lopes at the Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espetáculo in Porto. An Erasmus exchange with Washington Barella at the Universität der Künste Berlin brought her to Berlin, where she went on to complete her Bachelor of Music with Gregor Witt at the Barenboim-Said Akademie. Among her awards are two first prizes at the Idipsomusic International Chamber Music Competition (2017) and third prize at the Terras de La Salette International Wind Instrument Competition (2018).