Gulbenkian Orchestra Soloists
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Date
- / Cancelled / Sold out
Location
Grand Auditorium Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationPricing
- Free admission
- Violin
- Violin
- Viola
- Cello
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Bin Chao
Violin
Bin Chao was born into a family of musicians and began playing the violin at the age of six. He studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he graduated with distinction, and he completed a Masters in Music at the Mannes College of Music in New York, where he studied with the violinist David Nadien.
Henry Roth, the violinist and music critic, praised Bin Chao's musicality and sound technique in his book Great Violinists in Performance, a book that analyses the 100 greatest violinists of the twentieth century, from the author's perspective.
In 1984 he came 2nd in the Second National Violin Competition of China. As a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, he has performed throughout Europe and North America. He moved to Lisbon in 1991, and he has participated in the major music festivals in Portugal, as well as the Aspen Festival and the Schumann Festival in New York.
In 2001, he was a guest soloist at the prestigious Annual English Handbell Festival in New York. Between 1999 and 2001, he taught violin in New York, part of the Midori Foundation's initiative to bring music to public schools. He has taught at the University of Évora and, since 2007, has taught violin, viola and chamber music at the Piaget Institute. He has collaborated with the Conservatory of Music at the University of Lawrence in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA since 2010. Bin Chao plays a violin made by Carlo Giuseppe Testore in 1715.
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Jorge Teixeira
Violin
Born in Castelo de Paiva, Jorge Teixeira began studying music with his father, Joaquim Teixeira, then at the age of eleven he started violin lessons at the Escola de Música e Bailado de Linda-a-Velha, where he was a student of Vasco Broco and José Ferreira. In 1987, he completed the Advanced Violin Course, with Leonor Prado at the Conservatório Nacional de Lisboa. He graduated in violin from the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa in 2000.
He has been a member of several Portuguese youth orchestras (he was soloist and concertmaster of Collegium Musicum, Orquestra Sinfónica Juvenil and of Orquestra das Escolas de Música Particulares), and also abroad (Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée, Philharmonic Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre de l'Académie des Archets and Orchestre des Pays de Savoie). He has performed solo with the RDP Orquestra Sinfónica and the Orquestra D. Pedro V.
He works regularly in the area of chamber music, and was a violinist with the Quarteto Capela quartet. He was a chamber music teacher at the Orquestra das Escolas de Música Particulares and orchestra teacher at the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa.
He currently teaches violin at the Escola de Música e Bailado de Linda-a-Velha, and is musical director of the Orquestra D. Pedro V. He joined the Gulbenkian Orchestra in 1991.
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Lu Zheng
Viola
Lu Zheng was born in August 1977 in Tian Jin, China. He began violin and viola lessons at the age of six. Between 1989 and 1997, he attended the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he completed further and advanced viola studies. He was Principal Viola of the China Youth Orchestra between 1994 and 1997. In 1998, he was one of the founding members of the Chinese Quartet, and performed with this ensemble at the Évora and Algarve Music Festivals, at the invitation of the Fundação Oriente. In the meantime, he took advanced classes in chamber music with Max Rabinovitsj and in viola with Barbara Friedhoff and Bruno Pasquier.
Between 2000 and 2004, Lu Zheng was Soloist B with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa. He is a teacher of viola and chamber music and regularly performs solo recitals and chamber music. He joined the Gulbenkian Orchestra in 2005.
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Raquel Reis
Cello
Raquel Reis studied cello with Isabel Boiça at the Conservatório de Música de Aveiro Calouste Gulbenkian and completed her degree at the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra, where her teacher was Paulo Gaio Lima. She received first prizes in the Caldas da Rainha Interpretation Competition, the Samuel and Elinor Thaviu Endowed Scholarship Competition in String Performance (Northwestern University) and the Winnetka Music Club Scholarship.
In 2007, she completed her Masters in String Performance at the Northwestern University School of Music in Chicago, with Hans Jensen. She was awarded scholarships by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Raquel Reis was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Spira Mirabilis Orchestra and has performed solo with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, the Orquestra Académica Metropolitana and the Orquestra Clássica de Espinho. She is a member of the Trio Pessoa, with which she recorded the CD Pessoa, dedicated to Portuguese music. She also recorded the CD of Portuguese and Brazilian music, Mundo Grande. She has been a member of the Gulbenkian Orchestra since September 2007.
Luís de Freitas Branco
Antonín Dvořák
The Gulbenkian Orchestra consists of musicians of great technical and artistic quality. Throughout the season, they also perform in free chamber music concerts, thus emerging from the anonymity of their roles within the orchestra. While making themselves much more visible, they also make a considerable contribution to a greater appreciation of chamber music as a whole, from the standard repertoire to the premieres of new works.
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.