Manuel Rego is Second Double Bass Soloist with the Gulbenkian Orchestra and a teacher of double bass at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, where he teaches on the Bachelor and Master courses. He was a double bass teacher at the Escola de Música do Conservatório Nacional and at the Escola Superior de Artes de Castelo Branco.

He performs regularly in concerts, masterclasses and music festivals in Portugal, Moçambique and France as well as on radio, television and recordings. He is a soloist with several ensembles, mainly the Gulbenkian Choir. He works as a freelance player with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música and the Netherlands Philarmonic Orchestra.

Manuel Rego completed his Double Bass Course at the Conservatório Nacional (1982-1988), where his teachers were Armando Crispim and António Ferreira. With the benefit of a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, he studied with Professor Ludwig Streicher at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (1988 to 1990). He later completed his Bachelors Degree, specialising in Double Bass, at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, under the guidance of Professor Iouri Axenov (2000-2003), and his Master’s Degree in Pedagogy of the Instrument at the Piaget-Almada University Institute, where his teacher was Professor Joaquim Carmelo Rosa (2012). In 2014, he obtained the title of Specialist by the Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa.