La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ
Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir / Myung-Whun Chung
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Date
- 20:00 / Cancelled 20:00 / Sold out Thursday, 20:00
- 19:00 / Cancelled 19:00 / Sold out Friday, 19:00
Location
Grand Auditorium Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationPricing
50% – Under 30 years old
15% – Over 65 years old
- Conductor
- Piano
- Flute
- Clarinet
- Marco Fernandes
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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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Myung-Whun Chung
Conductor
Myung-Whun Chung began his musical career as a pianist, winning second prize at the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow in 1974. After his musical studies at the Mannes School and Juilliard School in New York, he was appointed Carlo Maria Giulini’s assistant in 1979 at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and became Associate Conductor two years later.
He was Music Director of the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 1990, Principal Guest Conductor of the Teatro Comunale di Firenze from 1987 to 1992 and Music Director of the Opéra de Paris-Bastille from 1989 to 1994. The year 2000 marked his return to Paris as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His love for Italy has been the basis of his extensive work in that country for many years, including, from 1997 to 2005, his position as Principal Conductor of the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He also appears regularly at the Teatro alla Scala and Teatro La Fenice, recently conducting Madama Butterfly, Simon Boccanegra, Otello and Tristan und Isolde. Other recent opera engagements include La Traviata, Rigoletto and Otello at the Wiener Staatsoper. In Germany, he became Principal Guest Conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden at the beginning of the 2012/13 season, the first conductor to hold the post in the history of the orchestra. Outside Europe, he is increasingly committed to musical and social causes in Asia through his role as Honorary Conductor Laureate of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and previously as Music Director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.
Highlights of the 2022-23 season include a return visit to La Fenice to conduct Falstaff, a European tour with the Munich Philharmonic and a return visit to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Myung-Whun Chung will also continue his regular collaborations with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Filarmonica della Scala.
Myung-Whun Chung has conducted some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Wiener Philharmoniker, as well as all the major London and Parisian orchestras. In the USA, he has collaborated with the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and Cleveland Orchestra.
An exclusive recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon since 1990, many of his numerous recordings have won international prizes and awards. Recent releases include a solo piano album of Brahms, Beethoven and Haydn, Messiaen Turangalîla Symphony and Shostakovich Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk with the Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille, as well as Mahler Symphony No. 2, Mahler Symphony No. 9, Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 Pathetique and a Beethoven disc, all with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.
Myung-Whun Chung has been the recipient of many honours and prizes for his artistic work, including the Premio Abbiati and the Arturo Toscanini prize in Italy and the Légion d’Honneur (1992) in France. In 1991, the Association of French Theatres and Music Critics named him Artist of the Year and in 1995 he won the Victoire de la Musique prize three times. He was named a Commandeur dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2011. In 2017, he was appointed as “Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia.
Deeply sensitive to humanitarian and ecological problems of our age, Myung-Whun Chung has devoted an important part of his life to these causes. In 1994, he launched a series of musical and environmental projects in Korea for youth. He served as Ambassador for the Drug Control Program at the United Nations (UNDCP); in 1995, he was named Man of the year by UNESCO and Most Distinguished Personality by the Korean press association. In 1996, he received the Kumkuan, the highest cultural award of the Korean government for his contribution to Korean musical life. Myung-Whun Chung now serves as Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Korea, the first in the Korean government’s history. In 2008, he was designated the first conductor named as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
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Roger Muraro
Piano
Born to Venetian parents in Lyon in 1959, Roger Muraro began studying the saxophone in his native city before teaching himself to play the piano. At the age of nineteen he entered Yvonne Loriod’s class at the Paris Conservatoire and met Olivier Messiaen. He quickly became established as one of the leading interpreters of the French composer, to whom he devoted a complete recording of the solo piano works, finished in 2001, that earned unanimous critical acclaim. His performances of Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus and the complete Catalogue d’oiseaux are regarded as not only a prodigious feat, but also an intimate appropriation of the works of Messiaen, with which he identifies totally.
While he is gifted with a dazzling technique, having studied for several years with Éliane Richepin and won prizes at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Liszt Competition in Parma, his playing is invariably placed at the service of poetry and sincerity. His artistry, at once oneiric and lucid, imaginative and rigorous, is equally at home in Mussorgsky, Ravel, Albeniz, Rachmaninov, Debussy and in Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, from whose music he extracts the full range of emotion, colours, hypersensitive Romanticism and sonic atmospheres.
Roger Muraro is a welcome guest as a recitalist in the world’s leading concert halls, and works with today’s foremost conductors and most prestigious ensembles.
Most of his CDs are recorded for Universal, for instance the complete recording of the solo piano works of Messiaen, a box called Regards sur le XXe siècle including works of Bartok, Boulez, Dutilleux, Ives, Jolas, Schoenberg, Tremblay and Messiaen in a tribute to Claude Helffer, the Symphonie fantastique of Berlioz in the transcription for piano solo by Liszt or the concertos of Ravel, among others.
In June 2017, Roger Muraro has played in Tokyo the world creation of a work for piano solo by Olivier Messiaen (Fauvettes de l’Hérault - concert des garrigues) from the sketches he has found in the archives of the composer at the National Library in Paris and collected by Roger Muraro himself. This piece has been played for the first time in France in Paris at the Festival Présences in February 2018 and was released in world premiere by harmonia mundi in November 2018.
He has also recently recorded the world premiere of the concerto for piano «Step Right Up» written by the Portuguese composer Vaso Mendonça, with the Orchestra of the Gulbenkian Foundation conducted by Benjamin Shwartz.
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Sónia Pais
Flute
Sónia Oliveira Pais (b. 1998) is the Gulbenkian Orchestra’s co-principal flute soloist. She is also currently pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich (HMTM) under Andrea Lieberknecht and is a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, a German youth orchestra.
She studied at the Mendelssohn-Orchesterakademie, the academy of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (2021/22), during which she recorded a CD for Deutsche Grammophon of Schubert’s Symphonies No. 8 and 9 under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt.
Throughout her career, she has played for orchestras such as the Gustav Mahler Academy (2019 and 2020) and the Orquesta Joven de la Sinfonica de Galicia (2016). She was invited to play with the Dresdner Philharmonie, Tchaikovsky International Orchester Ekaterinburg, Orquestra Clássica de Espinho and the Orchester der Russisch-Deutsche MusikAkademie – a project led by Valery Gergiev in collaboration with the Mariinsky Orchestra.
Of the Portuguese and international competitions she has taken part in, she won 1st Prize and the prize for “Excellence” – category A at the Gondomar International Music Competition and 3rd Prize at Finland’s Tampere Flute Fest – Piccolo Orchestral Competition.
She began studying music at the age of 7 at the Sociedade Filarmónica Fraternidade de São João de Areias in Santa Comba Dão in Portugal. Two years later, she entered the Conservatório de Música e Artes do Dão and later enrolled at the Escola Profissional de Música de Espinho under Paulo Barros. In 2017, she was admitted into the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, in the class of Benoît Fromanger, where she graduated with a first class degree. During this period, she received a scholarship for artistic merit from the Lucia-Loeser Stipendium.
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Iva Barbosa
Clarinet
Iva Barbosa began studying music with her father. She later studied at the Music Conservatory of Oporto and at ESMAE, with Adam Wierzba and António Saiote, respectively. She has been an award winner in over a dozen competitions, in particular, first prizes received at the 12th Estoril Interpretation Competition / El Corte Inglês Award, at the Young Musicians Award, at the 1st International Clarinet Competition of Oporto and at the Rotary International Young Revelation Competition. She received second place in the international Young Artist Competition, in Utah (USA), at the International Villa de Montroy Competition, in Valencia, and was a semi-finalist in the international “Prague Spring” competition.
As a soloist, she has played with various orchestras, including: National Orchestra of Oporto, Academic Orchestra of Oporto, Gulbenkian Orchestra, ESMAE Orchestra, Cascais and Oeiras Chamber Orchestra, Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon, Beiras Philharmonic and the Portuguese Symphonic Orchestra.
She has been invited to give master classes on the International Music Courses of Guimarães, the Oliveira do Bairro Summer Courses, at the Costa Cabral Academy of Music, the Piaget Institute of Mirandela, the Regional Conservatory of Vila Real, the Academy of Avintes, the Espinho Professional School of Music, the Conservatory of Music of Portalegre, the Las Palmas Conservatory and the Tenerife Conservatory. She is 1st Soloist at the Gulbenkian Orchestra and a founder member of the Vintage Quartet.
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Varoujan Bartikian
Cello
Varoujan Bartikian was born in Armenia and began his studies at the Tchaikovsky Special Music School under the guidance of Alexander Tchauchian. From 1978 to 1983, he attended the Komitas Conservatory of Music in Yerevan. In 1977 he won the Transcaucasian Cello Competition in Tbilisi, and in 1981 he participated in the Tbilisi Soviet Republic Competition, winning 3rd Prize and a special prize for his performance of the 24 Preludes by the Georgian composer Sulkan Tsintsadze. After graduating in 1983, he continued his education, obtaining a Master's Degree in Cello and in Music Sciences, in the areas of Theory of Interpretation and Teaching Methodology.
Varoujan Bartikian is a founding member of the Yerevan String Quartet, formed in 1982. This quartet won the 1983 Borodin Competition. In 1988 he began to teach cello at the Komitas Conservatory, a position he held until he moved to Portugal in 1989, when he joined the Gulbenkian Orchestra, with which he has also played as a soloist. He has played with the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of John Nelson, and recorded for RDP - Antena 2.
In 1991, he formed the Bartikian Trio, with pianist Michel Gal and clarinettist Esther Gerogie. In 2013, he founded Trio Aeternus with violinist Alexander Stewart and pianist Lucjan Luc. He has recorded several works by António Victorino d'Almeida for the Numérica label.
Varoujan Bartikian is 1st Cello Soloist of the Gulbenkian Orchestra and teaches cello at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa.
Olivier Messiaen
La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ
While consolidating his reputation as one of the most talented maestros of his generation, Myung-Whun Chung’s affinity with the work of Messiaen has made him an expert on the French composer’s music. Their proximity led Messiaen to choose Chung to conduct the world premiere of his Concert à Quatre in 1994, even dedicating the piece to the South Korean maestro. In the Grand Auditorium, Chung will direct one of the composer’s most impressive religious pieces, La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, a commission for the Gulbenkian Foundation premiered in 1969.
Sponsor Gulbenkian Music
Sponsor Gulbenkian Orchestra
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