Le Tombeau de Couperin
Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra
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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
- Countertenor
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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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George Benjamin
Conductor
George Benjamin was born in 1960 and began composing at the age of seven. In 1976 he entered the Paris Conservatoire to study with Messiaen, after which he worked with Alexander Goehr at King's College, Cambridge.
When Benjamin was only 20 years old, Ringed by the Flat Horizon was played at the BBC Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Mark Elder. The London Sinfonietta under Simon Rattle, premiered At First Light two years later. Pierre Boulez and the London Symphony Orchestra premiered Palimpsests in 2002 to mark the opening of ‘By George’, a season-long portrait which also included the premiere of Shadowlines given by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Recent seasons have seen major surveys of Benjamin’s work given by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Composer Festival at Konzerthaus Stockholm and Radio France’s Festival Présences.
Benjamin conducted the world premiere Picture a day like this at the Aix-en-Provence opera festival in July 2023, to great cricital acclaim. As with his previous three operatic scores, the text was written by playwright Martin Crimp. Into the Little Hill, was commissioned by the 2006 Festival d'Automne in Paris. Written on Skin (Aix, 2012) and Lessons in Love and Violence (Royal Opera House, 2018), both large-scale works, have both been widely performed in opera houses and concert halls across the world.
Over many years Benjamin has developed a particularly close association with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. They have played under his baton for the premiere performances of his Concerto for Orchestra at the 2021 BBC Proms as well as Written on Skin and Picture a day like this. Benjamin also has a strong relationship with the Ensemble Modern, with whom he will be touring this season to major venues including London, Berlin and Amsterdam. During 2023/24 he will also conduct concert performances of his operas with the Orchestre de Paris and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and return to both the Concertgebouw and Cleveland Orchestras. As a conductor Benjamin has a broad repertoire and has been responsible for numerous premieres, including important works by Rihm, Chin, Murail, Grisey and Ligeti.
Since 2001 Benjamin has been the Henry Purcell Professor of Composition at King‘s College London. His works are published by Faber Music and are recorded on Nimbus Records. He has received numerous honorary fellowships and international awards, was made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2015 and was knighted in the 2017 Birthday Honours. In 2019 he was given the Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement from the Venice Biennale, and he received the Grand Prix artistique from the Simone et Cino Del Duca Foundation at the Institut de France in 2022, and most recently Benjamin has been made the 50th laureate of the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.
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Bejun Mehta
Countertenor
The American countertenor Bejun Mehta, acclaimed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung as “…arguably the best countertenor in the world” and by The New York Times as “one of the most commanding, exhilarating countertenors of the modern era”, enjoys a renowned and influential world career. Mehta’s application of bel canto technique has changed and expanded what it means to be a modern countertenor. For over twenty-five years, Mehta has performed leading roles—some in productions specifically mounted for him—at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala Milan, Berlin State Opera, Bavarian State Opera Munich, Hamburg State Opera, Theater an der Wien, Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie, De Nederlandse Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, Zurich Opera, Opéra Nationale de Paris and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Salzburg Festival, Glyndebourne, the Aix-en-Provence and Santa Fe Festivals and the Wiener Festwochen. He has sung virtually all the major roles of his Fach.
As a conductor, Mehta has appeared in sing/conduct programs of the baroque and early classical repertoire with the Riga Sinfonietta, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, hrSinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Dresdner Philharmonie, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Württembergisches Kammerorchester and La Folia, among others. He conducted his first opera, Theodora, at Theater an der Wien in the fall of 2023 with La Folia, directed by Stefan Herheim.
Mehta has been fortunate to have numerous roles and new works written for him, most notably George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, widely considered one of the most important new operas of the 21st century. Benjamin subsequently wrote a solo cantata for Mehta called Dream of the Song which he has performed with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Boston Symphony, among others. Mehta also originated the role of Stefan in Toshio Hosokawa’s Stilles Meer for the Hamburg Staatsoper and gave the world premiere of I am in need of Music by Tobias Picker for the occasion of Marilyn Horne’s 70th Birthday Gala in Carnegie Hall.
In 2023, Bejun Mehta was appointed Professor of Voice at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna, being the first countertenor to hold this position.
Maurice Ravel
Le Tombeau de Couperin
George Benjamin
Dream of the Song
— Intermission 20 min —
George Benjamin
Concert for Orchestra
Leoš Janáček
Sinfonietta
A student of Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, George Benjamin soon began to fulfil his ambition of an auspicious future as a composer. At the age of 20 he was already part of the programme of the exclusive and prestigious BBC Proms, through the presentation of Ringed by the Flat Horizon; shortly after, First Light would be conducted by Simon Rattle, at the head of the London Sinfonietta. At the same time, Benjamin also established himself as a conductor, having premiered pieces by Rihm and Ligeti. At the head of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, he leads an eclectic programme that also includes important works by Ravel and Janáček.
Sponsor Gulbenkian Music
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