Leonor Baldaque

2026/2027 - Writer & Singer/Songwriter 

Leonor Baldaque is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores the boundaries between different art forms. Her creative approach brings cinema, music, literature, poetry and performance into dialogue with one another.

Her artistic journey began with eight years of classical music training on the cello. During her Master’s degree in French and English Literature, Leonor Baldaque began her career as an actress, collaborating with Manoel de Oliveira, a collaboration that continued for ten years through films presented at major international film festivals. She worked with Eugène Green, playing the title role in The Portuguese Nun (La Religieuse Portugaise).

She has published two novels in French: Vita, la vie légère, with Gallimard, and Piero Solitude, with Verdier. She is also the author of a novel in Portuguese, Aqueles Muros Altos (These High Walls), forthcoming in October 2026 with Relógio d’Água. In 2024, she released her first album of original songs in English, A Few Dates of Love, presented at a launch concert at Casa da Música in Porto.

During her time at the Maison Française d’Oxford, Leonor Baldaque will develop two areas of research and creative practice.

The first focuses on English poetry and literature, through an in-depth study of several of her favourite authors, including Shakespeare, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and Anne Sexton. In particular, she will explore the historical and philosophical contexts in which their works were conceived, as well as critical reflections on their writing and creative processes.

This research will directly inform her own poetic writing, which will accompany the creation of her second album of original songs in English, the recording of which she will begin during her stay at the Maison Française d’Oxford.

The second area of research concerns the condition of women in the Middle Ages. Through this historical and literary research, Leonor Baldaque will continue writing her third novel in French.