Roberto de Oliveira is a Brazilian author, composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, born in Fortaleza, and based in Lille since 2009 as musical director of the Brasil Afro Funk collective. Self-taught, Roberto studied music by listening to his grandfather every Sunday on the accordion. He then trained at the Centro Educacional Padre João Piamarta in Fortaleza, and then continued at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Lille with Christian Bogaert. A member of the OMB (Brazilian Order of Musicians), he toured Europe several times with the Dona Luíza Távora Orchestra, and played twice for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican (1997-2000). He then accompanied numerous Brazilian and international artists and popular music groups. When he arrived in France in 2009 as musical director of the Ballet Art Populaire de Fortaleza (BAPF), Roberto decided to settle in Lille at the invitation of the Brasil Afro Funk collective. 

In 2013-2014, he carried out an artistic residency for 6 months in the mining basin (Communauté de Commune du Cœur d'Osrevent). This work with former miners' bands and music schools brings together the North of France and the North East of Brazil through frevo (typical Recife carnival music). This project opened the doors of Lille 3000, which organised a parade called RENAISSANCE in the streets of Lille in 2015, during which he directed the bands and music schools (representing over 300 musicians). From 2015 to 2017, he participated in the recording of two opuses of the artist Toninho Almeida as composer and instrumentalist (Deu forró no samba and Intact). He recorded a choro album with the group Os Brasileirinhos as an instrumentalist and composer. In April 2017, he launched his first solo album "Sertão" (funk, frevo, forró, jazz, samba), which honours the Brazilian masters Sivuca and Oswaldinho, at a ball in Lille-Fives. As artistic director of the Açaí Association, Roberto is organising the first choro festival in Northern France in 2018: the Lille Choro Festival. This work has an educational component of training chorões (choro musicians), raising awareness in schools, old people's homes, conservatories, and finally dissemination (organisation of concerts in Lille-Brussels-Paris). The recording of a choro album by the trio Caldo de Cana (Roberto de Oliveira, trombone/mandolin; Rosivaldo Cordeiro, 7-string guitar, mandolin; Osman Martins, cavaquinho, pandeiro) takes place in autumn 2018 to support the organisation of this new festival.

Roberto crossed paths with Philippe Quevauviller at the first Lille Choro Festival in 2018. In October 2019, he was invited to participate in the Bossa Flor programme as part of a Franco-Brazilian mini-festival. On mandolin and trombone, he participates in the project "Brassens dans tous ses états" with the trio Soltacorda composed of Vitor Garbelotto, Osman Martins and himself.