Teresa Paiva finished the Superior Course of Piano in the National Conservatory with 19 values. She was a disciple of her Mother, Gilberta Paiva, Maria Adelaide Freitas Gonçalves and Croner de Vasconcelos. In 1967 on a grant from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation she pursued studies at the Cologne School of Music. She was awarded the prizes of the National Conservatory, Botelho Leitão, Rey Colaço and Pró-Arte. During several years it formed duo with the cellist Isabel Delerue presenting itself in concert in several delegations of the Portuguese Musical Youth, Espinho Festival and Gulbenkian Foundation. In 1971, she was appointed teacher of the general and superior piano courses at the Oporto Conservatory of Music, a position she held until 2001. She felt and lived her pedagogical practice as a positive factor, always seeking the human contact she always considered important to associate with transmission of knowledge.