Born in Póvoa de Lanhoso, José Miguel Freitas graduated from the Escola USperior de Música de Lisboa, studying with Pedro Saglimbeni Muñoz, and obtained his master’s degree with grootste onderschreiding (highest distinction) from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, studying with Leo de Neve, as a Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship holder, and from the Royal College of Music in London, with Nathan Braude, as a Houston Family Scholar supported by a Lucy Ann Jones Scholarship.

Laureate in two editions of the Vasco Barbosa National String Competition, he participated in masterclasses with Igor Suliga, Máté Szücs, Isabel Charisius, Maxim Rysanov, Antonello Farulli and Andriy Viytovych. He was an academician with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra in the 2019/2020 season, an orchestra with which he continues to perform regularly, and a member of the Belgian Chamber Orchestra – Casco Phil, between 2021 and 2024. He has collaborated frequently with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra since 2021.

After completing his studies, he embarked on a four-year journey with the Quíron Project, a string quartet of which he is a founding member and with which he has performed in concert halls and festivals throughout Western and Central Europe. Developing intensive training under the guidance of the Danel Quartet (Netherlands String Quartet Academy – NSKA) since its creation, he won an award at the Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition (2023, Poland). With the Quíron Quartet, he has developed contacts with great musicians and teachers, including Eberhard Feltz, Mathieu Herzog, Pierre Colombet, Szymon Krzeszowiec, Clive Brown, William Coleman, Guy Danel, Joseph Kluson, as well as the Van Kuijk, Jerusalem, Bennewitz and Prazak quartets. He has shared the stage with the Danel and Jerusalem Quartets, Svetlin Roussef, Jennifer Stumm, Johanns Thorsten, Emil Rovner, Guy Danel and Joseph Kluson.

He has performed in chamber concerts with the Fidelio Trio (United Kingdom), the RARO and Ataneres Ensembles (Belgium), Jean-Louis Rassinfosse and Jean-Phillippe Collard-Neven (Belgium), the Soloists of Orchestra XXI (Portugal) and Marc Danel at Tivoli Vredenburg (Netherlands). He has been a member of Lorenzo Gatto’s Karavan Vivaldi ensemble since its creation in 2022.

José Freitas plays a 2017 Stephan Jarosz viola.