Horácio Ferreira, one of the most promising clarinet players of his generation, winner of the 2014 Young Musician of the Year, is the artist proposed by the Gulbenkian Foundation and the Casa da Música to participate in the ECHO Rising Stars programme for the 16/17 season in this initiative by the European Concert Hall Organisation, the network interlinking leading European concert venues.

As with the remainder of the musicians selected by other members of the network, Horácio Ferreira will thus gain the opportunity to present a recital featuring a repertoire of his own choice on a tour featuring such landmarks as the Barbican in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam or the Muzikverein in Vienna and in Portugal both the Casa da Música and the Gulbenkian Foundation.

Having graduated from the Higher School of Music and the Performing Arts under the tutorship of António Saiote, he currently studies at the Queen Sofía Higher School of Music in Madrid under the supervision of Enrique Pérez Piquer and Michel Arrignon. He was recently an award winner for the clarinet at the prestigious Concours Debussy (Paris) for the best interpretation of Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie.

Horácio Ferreira is a member of Orchestra XXI, a group of young Portuguese musicians who study or play abroad and that won the 2013 FAZ competition – Ideas of Portuguese Origin run by the Gulbenkian Foundation.

In the Rising Stars programme for this year, the Portuguese contribution is ensured by the Matosinhos Quarteto, who opened the weekend dedicated to these young musical stars in May.