This year, through to the end of May, Gulbenkian Music is putting on over six dozen performances in the Grand Auditorium. We provide you here with just a few suggestions for concerts featuring music from various eras, styles and latitudes with the Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra playing their usual roles in this season.

 

Love and ecstasy

Thursday, 12 January at 21:00 – about the event
Friday, 13 January at 19:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra
Lorenzo Viotti (Conductor)
Karine Deshayes (Mezzo-Soprano)

Richard Wagner – Tristan und Isolde: Prelude to Act I

Ernest Chausson – Poème de l’amour et de la mer, op. 19

Claude Debussy – Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

Alexander Scriabin – Le Poème de l’extase, op. 54

The young maestro Lorenzo Viotti for the very first time conducts the Gulbenkian Orchestra in a program that combines emblematic works from the repertoires of Wagner, Chausson, Debussy and Scriabin. Winner of the Young Maestro Award at the Salzburg Festival, Lorenzo Viotti was a percussionist with the Vienna Philharmonic before subsequently becoming the orchestra’s conductor.

 

Mozart Marathon

Sunday, 22 January at 16:00 – about the event
Sunday, 22 January at 20:00 – about the event

Cuarteto Casals
Abel Tomàs (Violin)
Vera Martínez (Violin)
Jonathan Brown (Viola)
Arnau Tomàs (Cello)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
String Quartet No.14, in G major, K. 387
String Quartet No.15, in D minor, K. 421
String Quartet No.16, E-flat major, K. 428

A marathon totally dedicated to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is served up by the Casals Quartet in their latest presentation in the Grand Auditorium. Through an entire Sunday, this much renowned string formation will be playing the six quartets that Mozart dedicated to Haydn and composed between 1782 and 1785.

 

The Harmonics Seasons

Satuday, 28 January at 21:00 – about the event

Wang Li (Berimbau / Calabash Flute)
Wu Wei (Sheng)

The Chinese duo Wu Wei and Wang Li perform a concert inspired on the sounds of their Asian instruments: sheng, berimbau and calabash flute. Wang Li lived in a French monastery for four years, delivering himself up to an introspection that finds a perfect echo in his music and very much reflected in this concert entitled The Harmonic Seasons.

 

Adriana Calcanhotto

Friday, 3 February at 21:00 – about the event

Adriana Calcanhotto (Voice)
Arthur Nestrovski (Guitar)

Das Rosas

Adriana Calcanhoto returns to the Gulbenkian Foundation stage for a tour through Portuguese and Brazil music and poetry featuring poems by Luís de Camões, Mário de Sá-Carneiro, Fernando Pessoa, Fiama Hasse Pais Brandão, Vinicius de Moraes, Dorival Caymmi, Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque. This performance was designed by the artist for presentation at the closure of commemorations of the 725^th anniversary of the University of Coimbra.

 

Acis and Galatea

Thurday, 23 February at 21:00 – about the event
Friday, 24 February at 19:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir
Leonardo Garcia Alarcón (Conductor)
Ana Quintans (Soprano)
Marco Alves dos Santos (Tenor)
André Henriques (Baritone)

Leonardo Garcia Alarcón and Marie Mignot – Staging

Georg Friedrich Händel – Acis and Galatea, HWV 49

Classical opera also takes up its rightful place in this season with a semi-staged production of Acis and Galatea by Handel, conducted by a specialist in Baroque music, the Argentinean maestro Leonardo Garcia Alarcón. The Gulbenkian Choir and Orchestra take to the stage with a trio of national soloists to bring back to life this tragic love story immortalised in Metamorphoses by Ovid. The scenic action is the responsibility of both the maestro himself and along with Marie Mignot.

 

Almada Negreiros in concert

Thursday, 23 March at 21:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra
Nuno Coelho Silva (Conductor)

Darius Milhaud – Le Boeuf sur le toit, op. 58

Erik Satie – Parade

Salvador Bacarisse – La tragedia de Doña Ajada (suite)

In close relationship with the exhibition Almada Negreiros. One way of being modern, Gulbenkian Music is staging a suite by the Spanish musician Salvador Bacarisse, La tragedia de doña Ajada, which premiered in 1929 to accompany poems by Manuel Abril. The premiere of this piece featured the collaboration of Almada who designed a series of illustrations that were projected by a magic lantern and that shall undergo reproduction in this performance. This concert, which respires in the ambience of artistic crossovers experienced in the early 20^th century, also includes works by Satie and by Milhaud and is conducted by Nuno Coelho Silva, the winner of the first Young Musicians Award for Orchestral Conducting.

 

Waltraud Meier

Thursday, 6 April at 21:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra
Frédéric Chaslin (Condcutor)
Waltraud Meier (Mezzo-Soprano)

Franz Schubert – Rosamunde, D. 797: Overture

Gustav Mahler – Kindertotenlieder

Franz Schubert – Rosamunde, D. 797: Entr’actes

Gustav Mahler – Rückert Lieder

Following the great recital of the last season with the opportunity to hear the Wesendonck Lieder cycle by Richard Wagner, the German mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier, one of the great contemporary performers, now brings a repertoire drawn from Lieder by Gustav Mahler based on poems by Friedrich Rückert. The Gulbenkian Orchestra accompanies and conducted by the French maestro Frédéric Chaslin.

 

Death and Transfiguration

Thursday, 4 May at 21:00 – about the event
Friday, 5 May at 19:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir
Susanna Mälkki (Conductor)

Jonathan Harvey – Messages

Richard Wagner – Parsifal: Parsifal: Prelude to Act I

Richard Strauss – Death and Transfiguration, op. 24

After having conducted the Met to such great success with the opera L’amour de Loin by Kaija Saariaho, broadcast live in the Foundation’s Grand Auditorium in December, the maestro Susanna Mälkki reencounters the Gulbenkian Orchestra in a program featuring works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. This also includes the performance of a piece by the British composer Jonathan Harvey, which premiered in 2010 and takes its inspiration from the hierarchy of angels in the heaven.

 

The music of animals

Sunday, 14 May at 11:00 – about the event
Sunday, 14 May at 16:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra
Samuel Barsegian (Conductor)
Bin Chao (Violin)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – The flight of the bumblebee

Camille Saint-Saëns – The Carnival of the Animals: “The Swan”

Gioachino Rossini La gazza ladra: Overture

He Zhanhao – The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto

This Sunday concert for all of the family is dedicated to the world of animals and bringing together some of the best known works from this thematic repertoire, such as The Flight of the Bumblebee by Rimsky-Korsakov or The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. As is the regular practice for these concerts, the Gulbenkian Orchestra performs in two sessions, the first at 11am and then again at 4pm.

 

The Dream of Gerontius

Thursday, 25 May at 21:00 – about the event
Friday, 26 May at 19:00 – about the event

Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir
Paul McCreesh (Conductor)
Anna Stéphany (Mezzo-Soprano)
Jeremy Ovenden (Tenor)
Andrew Foster-Williams (Baritone)

Edward Elgar – The Dream of Gerontius, op. 38

Having premiered at the Festival of Birmingham in 1900, The Dream of Gerontius is one of the most renowned works by the British composer Edward Elgar, who took his inspiration from a poem by John Henry Newman to describe the route of the soul of a man, from his deathbed through to judgement by God and being led off into Purgatory. Paul McCreesh conducts the Gulbenkian Orchestra for this concert.