A German Requiem
Gulbenkian Orchestra and Choir
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Date
- / Cancelled / Sold out
Location
Grand Auditorium Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation- Conductor
- Soprano
- André Baleiro Baritone
- Joana David Piano
- Nuno Lopes Piano
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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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Peter Dijkstra
Conductor
Peter Dijkstra is one of today's most sought-after choral conductors. Born in 1978, he studied at the conservatories of The Hague, Cologne and Stockholm, and graduated summa cum laude with distinction. In 2003 he won first prize at the Eric Ericson Competition in Stockholm, which launched his international career.
Since 2022 Dijkstra holds the position of Artistic Director of the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich, a position which he also held from 2005 to 2016. During his tenure the ensemble became one of the leading international choirs and expanded its repertoire significantly. After a long period of being the choir’s first guest-conductor, in 2015 Peter Dijkstra became Chief Conductor of the Nederlands Kamerkoor. From 2007 to 2018 he was also Music Director of the Swedish Radio Choir, which appointed him its Conductor Laureate in 2019.
Next to his work with these ensembles, Peter Dijkstra is a regular guest of leading European choirs, such as the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, the WDR and NDR Rundfunkchöre, Danish National Radio Choir, the SWR Vokalensemble, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and BBC Singers, to name a few. Also a sought-after guest with orchestras, he has conducted a.o. the Symphonieorchester and Rundfunkorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Münchener Kammerorchester and early music ensembles such as Concerto Köln, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Freiburger Barockorchester and B'Rock. He has performed on internationally renowned festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Hong Kong International Music Festival and the Salzburger Festspiele
Dijkstra’s work encompasses a wide range of repertoire, from Medieval polyphony through to music of the 21st century. He has premiered works by composers such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Lera Auerbach, Eriks Esenvalds, Jakob Mühlrad, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Caroline Shaw, Martin Smolka, Jacob TV and Joost Kleppe, and is a passionate advocate for exceptional composing talent in the choral repertoire.
Peter Dijkstra’s CD recordings have received several prizes. He won two ECHO Klassik awards for Fauré’s Requiem (Sony Classics) and Schnittke’s Choir Concerto (BR Klassik), two Diapason d'Ors for an album with works by Strauss, Wagner, Mahler (BR Klassik) and Poulenc’s Figure Humaine (Channel Classics), the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recording of J.S. Bach’s Johannes-Passion and was nominated for two Grammys. His recording of Brahms’ Sacred Choral Works with the Swedish Radio Choir received the Edison Klassiek Award 2015.
He conducted the World Youth Choir on their African Tour in 2007 and is regularly invited to give and initiate masterclasses and projects to promote choir singing and conducting at the highest possible level. From 2016 to 2020 Peter Dijkstra was Professor for Choral Conducting at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and from October 2023 he holds this position at the Hochschule für Musik in Nürnberg.
Dijkstra is an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Music Academy. He received the Golden Violin 2013, an award for internationally successful Dutch musicians, and the Eugen Jochum Prize in 2014.
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Ilse Eerens
Soprano
Praised for her luminous voice, musical sensitivity and versatility, Belgian soprano Ilse Eerens enjoys an international opera and concert career in repertoire that spans from Bach to works of the 21st century.
Highlights of the season 2024-25 include her debut at New National Theater Tokyo in the title role and world premiere of Toshio Hosokawa’s new opera Natasha. In concert she will perform Brahms Requiem with the Gulbenkian Orchestra under the baton of Peter Dijkstra, La Vierge in Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bucher with hr-Sinfonieorchester and Alain Altinoglu in Alte Oper Frankfurt, Philharmonie de Paris, Wiener Musikverein and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Mahler’s Symphony no 8 at La Monnaie, Bach’s Matthäuspassion with Phion and Residentie Orkest, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater with Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse and Liza Lim’s Fatimah/Jubilation of Flowers with Basel Sinfonietta
Recent seasons saw engagements at Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Salzburger Festspiele, Theater an der Wien, Opera de Lyon, Opera de Lille, Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Bregenzer Festspiele in roles such as Pamina and 1.Dame/Die Zauberflöte, Mélisande/Pelléas et Mélisande, title-roles in Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen and Hosokawa’s Matsukaze, Tschang-haitang in Zemlinsky’s Der Kreidekreis, Marianne in HK Gruber’s Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald, La Vierge in Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher, Susanna/Le nozze di Figaro, Despina/Cosi fan tutte and Héro in Berlioz’ Béatrice et Benedict.
Next to these appearances Ilse Eerens is a regular guest at La Monnaie in Brussels in roles such as Pamina, Sophie/Der Rosenkavalier, La Vierge, Celia/Lucio Silla, Oscar/Un ballo in maschera, Jemmy in a concert version of Guillaume Tell (also at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam), Noémie in Massenet’s Cendrillon, Antigone in Enescu’s Oedipe and Amanda in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, a part she has also performed at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and at the Adelaide Music Festival in Australia.
Equally sought-after in concert, her repertoire includes the major works from Baroque and Classique up to Music of the 21st century - from Bach’s Oratories to the Requiems by Mozart, Brahms, Fauré and Dvorak, Masses and Oratories by Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schubert up to contemporary music like Hans Abrahamsen’s Let Me Tell You and the world premiere of Hosokawa’s Nach dem Sturm with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. At the Salzburger Festspiele and the Wiener Konzerthaus she performed Gottfried von Einem’s Der Prozess with the Radiosinfonieorchester Wien. Ms Eerens has worked with conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Riccardo Muti, Hartmut Haenchen, Lorenzo Viotti, Kazushi Ono, HK Gruber, Ton Koopman, Philippe Herreweghe, Peter Dijkstra, Richard Egarr, Laurence Equilbey, Jean-Christoph Spinosi, Michael Schønwandt, Mark Wigglesworth, Jaap van Zweden, Antonello Manacorda and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and ensembles like Orchestre National de Radio France, Orquesta y Coro Nacional d’España, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, MDR Sinfonieorchester, City of Birmingham Symphony, Rotterdam and Brussels Philharmonic, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Capella Mediterranea, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Beethovenorchester Bonn, Choeur Accentus and NDR Vokalensemble, just to name a few.
Available on CD and DVD are Haydn’s Jahreszeiten with Concerto Köln and Marcus Creed (Carus), Nach dem Sturm with the Orquesta Sinfonia de Euskadi under Jun Maerkl, Dvořák’s Requiem and Stabat Mater (Record of the Month/Gramophone Magazine) and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe, Bach’s Osteroratorium with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Frans Brüggen, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aaron (EuroArts) and songs by Antonio Salieri (SWR/Hänssler Classic).
Awards include the Arleen Auger prize in the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, where she was the only the finalist who excelled in all the three categories of Opera, Oratorio and Lieder, and the 3rd prize at the ARD Musikwettbewerb 2006.
Johannes Brahms
Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45
A German Requiem is one of Johannes Brahms’ most intense works. The inspiration for his composition evolved from two searing losses: the death of his mentor and friend Robert Schumann and that of his mother a few years later. However, according to Brahms, this was a Requiem to comfort the living, rather than to celebrate the souls of the dead. In addition to the original work, for choir, orchestra and soloists, Brahms realised an alternative version with a piano duo, which the Gulbenkian Choir presents with the collaboration of Joana David and Nuno Lopes.
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.
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