A Midsummer Night's Dream
Sunday Concerts
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Date
- / Cancelled / Sold out
Location
Grand Auditorium Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationPricing
25% – Under 30
10% – Over 65
Cartão Gulbenkian:
50% – Under 30
15% – Over 65
- Conductor
- Narrator
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Gulbenkian Orchestra
In 1962, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation decided to establish a permanent orchestral ensemble. Originally with only twelve musicians (strings and continuo) it was named “Orquestra de Câmara Gulbenkian”. This collective was successively enlarged and today the “Orquestra Gulbenkian” (the name it has adopted since 1971) has a permanent body of sixty instrumentalists, a number that can be expanded depending on the repertoire.
This structure allows the Gulbenkian Orchestra to interpret works from the Baroque and Classical periods, a significant part of 19th century orchestral literature and much of the music of the 20th century, including works belonging to the current repertoire of the traditional symphonic orchestras. In each season, the orchestra performs on a regular series of concerts at the Gulbenkian Grand Auditorium in Lisbon, where it has had the opportunity of working together with some of leading names of the world of music (conductors and soloists). It has also performed on numerous locations all over Portugal, in an effort to decentralize music and culture.
The orchestra has been constantly expanding its activities in the international level, performing in Europe, Asia Africa, and the Americas. In the recording field, Orquestra Gulbenkian is associated to labels as Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, Teldec, Erato, Adès, Nimbus, Lyrinx, Naïve and Pentatone, among others, and this activity was recognized with several international prizes.
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Bertie Baigent
Conductor
In June 2022 Bertie Baigent won the Grand Prix at the inaugural International Conducting Competition in Rotterdam, along with the Classical and Symphonic prizes. Since then Bertie has gone on to conduct the Rotterdam Philharmonic, City of Birmingham City Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille and Phion Orchestra at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
The 2024/25 season see Bertie debut with the Osaka Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra and Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The previous season saw debuts with the London Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Tampere Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Bruckner Orchester Linz and Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, as well as returns to the City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Bertie has been Music Director of Waterperry Opera Festival since 2017. There and elsewhere he has conducted productions of Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Carmen, Dido and Aeneas, and Partenope – directing the latter two from the harpsichord. He made his Glyndebourne Festival Opera debut in summer 2023 – stepping in to conduct Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore – and returns to Glyndebourne this winter for Handel’s Messiah.
Bertie is a former assistant conductor of the Colorado Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony and Rotterdam Philharmonic. His many awards include the Royal Academy of Music’s Sir Henry Wood Scholarship and Ernest Read Prize in 2017. He was also given the Orchestra Prize by the New Japan Philharmonic at the Tokyo International Conducting Competition in 2021.
Born in Oxford in 1995, Bertie read music at the University of Cambridge, going on to study conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Sian Edwards and graduating with distinction. He is also a composer, his music having been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society and performed by the Aurora Orchestra, Fretwork and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
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Vera Dias
Bassoon
Vera Dias was born in Guimarães. She started at the Escola Profissional Artística do Vale do Ave at the age of twelve, where she began her musical studies learning bassoon with Jesus Coelho. Later, she studied with Paulo Martins, with whom she finished the Wind Instrumentalists Course, winning the Dr Manuela Carvalho Prize. At the age of eighteen she was admitted to the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik - Karlsruhe, studying bassoon with Günter Pfitzenmaier. She graduated in 2008 from Escola Superior de Música.
She has played with the Orquestra Portuguesa das Escolas de Música, the Orquestra Aproarte, the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa, the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik - Karlsruhe Chamber Orchestra, the Pforzheim Chamber Orchestra and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and has given concerts throughout Europe and the East.
In 2003 and 2004, she was selected to join the European Union Youth Orchestra summer school, which she attended only in 2004. In 2003 she declined that opportunity to be able to compete for the Young Musicians Prize, in which she received 1st Prize in the Bassoon category. In 2004, she won 2nd Prize in the Landespolizei competition, in Karlsruhe.
She had a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation from 2003 to 2006. She has been 1st Assistant Soloist with the Gulbenkian Orchestra since September 2006.
Felix Mendelssohn
Suite from A Midsummer Night's Dream, op. 61 (excerpts)
Total approximate duration: 60 minutes without intermission
During his childhood, Felix Mendelssohn and his sisters used to read passages from plays by William Shakespeare and act out the various roles. One of the most common texts on these occasions was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Marked by his relationship with this particular work, Mendelssohn composed an astonishing overture of the same name at the age of 17. Years later, he would add a more extensive score of incidental music. In these Sunday Concerts, Mendelssohn’s music will be conducted by the talented young British conductor Bertie Baigent.
Sponsor Gulbenkian Music
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation reserves the right to collect and keep records of images, sounds and voice for the diffusion and preservation of the memory of its cultural and artistic activity. For further information, please contact us through the Information Request form.
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