Festas de Lisboa
Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir
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Date
- 20:00 / Cancelled 20:00 / Sold out Tuesday, 20:00
Location
Grand Auditorium Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation- Conductor
- Presenter
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Gulbenkian Choir
Coro Gulbenkian was founded in 1964 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation as a full symphonic body of around 100 singers. The choir joins the Orquestra Gulbenkian and other orchestras to perform Classical, Romantic and Contemporary choral-symphonic repertoire, but can also perform a cappella. It has performed – and often premiered – many 20th century works by Portuguese and international composers.
Coro Gulbenkian has been invited to collaborate with major international orchestras, under the direction of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Colin Davis, John Nelson, Emmanuel Krivine, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Frans Brüggen, Franz Welser-Möst, Gerd Albrecht, Michael Gielen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, René Jacobs and Leonard Slatkin, among others.
Besides its regular season of concerts in Lisbon and frequent national tours, Coro Gulbenkian has repeatedly toured Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macao, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Uruguay.
Coro Gulbenkian has recorded extensively for Philips, Deutsche Grammophon, Erato, Cascavelle, Musifrance, as well as FNAC-Music, performing a wide range of repertoire, from Early-Renaissance polyphony to Xenakis. Several of these albums received international awards.
Michel Corboz was the Principal Conductor between 1969 and 2019. Jorge Matta and Inês Tavares Lopes are currently the Associate and Assistant conductors, respectively.
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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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Alevtina Ioffe
Conductor
Alevtina Ioffe is the new Chief Conductor of the Bern Opera, effective from the season 2025/26: as one of the most versatile and exciting conductors of her generation she is also the Principal Guest Conductor of the Staatskapelle Weimar from the season 2024/25.
Alevtina is highly demanded as opera conductor and regularly appears at the Komische Oper Berlin, at the Staatstheater in Stuttgart, where she made her debut with Hänsel und Gretel and at the Gothenburg Opera, where she returned during the season 2023/24 with a new production of The flying Dutchman. Conducting a new production of the ballet On the move, she also made her debut at the Opernhaus Zürich in December 2022. She has made her successful US operatic debut conducting Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Seattle Opera in May 2022, followed by a production of La bohème at the Washington National Opera in Spring 2023.
Alevtina Ioffe is equally successful with her symphonic activities: in France she has conducted the Orchestre National de Lille, she is regular guest of the Orchestre National de l’Île-de-France (both at the Cité de la Musique and at the Philharmonie de Paris) and has made her debut with the Orchestre National de Lyon in August 2024 leading a concert for the festival La Chaise Dieu. Alevtina Ioffe is also regularly present in Italy, where she has conducted the Orchestra della Toscana, the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (where she appears regularly and in September 2024 has conducted the opening concert of the symphonic season) and the Haydn Orchestra. In October 2023 she made her symphonic US debut with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with great acclaim: she returned in October 2024 and will be again at the helm of the Seattle Symphony in the season 2025/26. Conducting music by Stravinsky and Holst, Alevtina also made her debut at the Oregon Bach Festival in the USA in Summer 2024.
In December 2023 she has conducted her first 7-cities European Tour to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra with concerts in Zagreb, Ljubljana, Budapest, Munich, Innsbruck, Linz and Athens and established a successful artistic partnership with pianist Alexander Malofeev.
The beginning of the season 2024/25 marked Alevtina’s first appearance in UK with the London Philharmonic and conducting the final concert of the Geneva Singing Competition, she has made her debut with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande Orchestra. At the helm of the Danish Philharmonic Orchestra she has also made her debut in Denmark. Alevtina Ioffe will also return to Germany for concerts with the Staatskapelle Weimar and in the season 2025/26 she will conduct the ballet Swan Lake at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Born in Moscow, Alevtina Ioffe studied choral conducting, classical vocal and piano at the Moscow State Conservatory, where she also attended post-graduate program in the class of opera and symphonic conducting held by Professor Vladimir Ponkin. For a decade, between 2011 and 2021, Alevtina Ioffe was Music Director of The State Opera and Ballet Theatre for Young Audience “Natalia Sats” in Moscow, where she has experienced a significant number of educational projects and developed a vast symphonic and operatic repertoire; between February 2021 and July 2022 she has also been Music Director of the Mikhailovsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, the first women to lead an important musical institution in Russia.
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Raquel Saraiva
Bassoon
Raquel Saraiva began her bassoon studies in Coimbra with José Pedro Figueiredo. She graduated from ESMAE, where she studied with H. Kesteman and Pedro Silva. She completed her Master’s degree at Lübeck Musikhochschule with Pierre Martens. As part of the Erasmus programme, she attended the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, where she studied with Dag Jensen. She is currently studying for a postgraduate degree at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg with Marco Postinghel.
She has played with various orchestras, including: Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, European Union Youth Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Bamberg Symphony, Philharmonisches Orchester der Hansestadt Lübeck, NDR Symphony Hamburg, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Portuguese Chamber Orchestra and the Gulbenkian Orchestra. She has been an academician of the SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony and a Gulbenkian Foundation grant-holder. She has won awards at the Prémio Jovens Músicos (Young Musicians Award), the 5th International Academic Oboe and Bassoon Competition Łódź and the Estoril National Competition. From 2014 to 2018 she was Soloist B in the orchestra of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. She has been 2nd Soloist of the Gulbenkian Orchestra since 2018.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Edward Elgar
Emilie Mayer
Charles Gounod
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Alexander Borodin
Opera’s true presence in popular culture is sometimes overlooked. In this concert, the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Alevtina Ioffe, perform some of the most celebrated passages from the operatic repertoire, from grand choruses to orchestral interludes. From Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet to Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Borodin’s Prince Igor, we will hear unique musical moments that have left their mark on generations of listeners. An opportunity to celebrate this resistance to time and to realize just how familiar the operatic repertoire can be to any listener.
Photo © Victor Goriachev
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