Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1
Gulbenkian Orchestra
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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 FoundationThis concert will be broadcast live on RTP – Antena 2 (radio), on 12 December at 19:00 GMT.
Pricing
25% – Under 30
10% – Over 65
Cartão Gulbenkian:
50% – Under 30
20% – Over 65
10% – 30 to 65
- Conductor
- Piano
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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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Samy Rachid
Conductor
Assistant Conductor: Boston Symphony Orchestra (from 2023/24)
For the 2025/26 season, French conductor Samy Rachid enters his third year as Assistant Conductor of Boston Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Andris Nelsons. Following his acclaimed Tanglewood debut in 2025 with Midori, he has continued to collaborate extensively with the orchestra. Highlights include stepping in on short notice for Andris Nelsons with Renée Fleming as soloist at Symphony Hall, performing with Yo-Yo Ma at Tanglewood in 2026, and conducting further subscription concerts with Pablo Ferrandez at Symphony Hall in November 2025, underscoring his significant artistic presence alongside his role as Assistant Conductor.
The season also features several important debuts and returns. Rachid makes his first appearances as Guest Conductor with orchestras such as Rotterdam Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, Hamburger Symphoniker, Orchestre National de Lille, and the Gulbenkian Orchestra with pianist Lise de la Salle as soloist, with whom he’ll be collaborating on a subsequent tour returning to Philharmonie Zuidnederland. He also returns to Auckland Philharmonia and to the Opéra National du Rhin, conducting a full production of Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys. The season’s highlights also include his debut in China with the Suzhou Symphony Orchestra.
Since 2021 Samy Rachid has worked with NHK Symphony Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, Verbier Festival Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Sinfonie Orchester Biel Solothurn, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse, and Hungarian Symphony Orchestra Szeged.
Working as Assistant Conductor of Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg in 2022, he was also a Conducting Fellow of Verbier Festival that year, returning in 2023. He worked there with renowned conductors such as Zubin Metha, Gianandrea Noseda and Klaus Mäkelä. In 2022, he took part in the Gstaad Conducting Academy, where he worked closely with Jaap von Zweden and became the first French conductor to be awarded the Academy's Neeme Järvi Prize.
Formerly the cellist of the Arod Quartet, Samy Rachid left that ensemble in 2021 to focus on conducting, winning 2nd Prize of the Tokyo International Music Competition for Conducting. The same year he worked with France's Orchestre Elektra and was subsequently asked by the ensemble to become their Music Director for the 2022/23 season.
His journey as the cellist of the Arod Quartet allowed him to learn with great masters such as the Ebene Quartet and Artemis Quartet. In 2015, he won the 1st Prize and two special prizes at the Carl Nielsen String Quartet Competition and in 2016, the 1st Prize and two special prizes at the ARD Competition in Münich. He recorded several albums for Warner Classics.
Samy studied with Mathieu Herzog and assisted him with Orchestre Appassionato on several projects, mainly with prestigious singers such as Roberto Alagna, Ludovic Tezier and Nadine Sierra.
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Lise de la Salle
Piano
Lise de la Salle is an internationally recognised pianist with a career spanning over twenty years. Her award-winning recordings and international performances have made her a prominent figure among contemporary pianists. A Washington Post critic once remarked, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe... the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”
The 2025/26 season marks another milestone in her career, featuring collaborations with orchestras such as Staatskapelle Berlin under Nathalie Stutzmann, Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Kristiina Poska, Antwerp Symphony and Eliahu Inbal, Polish National Radio Symphony and Stephanie Childress, as well as Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Shanghai Philharmonic, Enescu Philharmonic, Colorado Springs Philharmonic. She will also work with the French conductor Samy Rachid with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, as well as on tour with the Philharmonie ZuidNederland.
Lise has played with many leading orchestras across the globe: Chicago, Boston and Washington Symphony Orchestras, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Münchner Philharmoniker, Dresden Staatskapelle, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale Della RAI, Rotterdam Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestras, Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra among many others. She collaborated with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Fabio Luisi, James Conlon, Gianandrea Noseda, Krzysztof Urbanski, Antonio Pappano, Rafael Payare, Karina Kanellakis, Lioner Bringuier, Thomas Søndergård, Fabien Gabel, Marek Janowski, Robin Ticciati, Osmö Vanska, James Gaffigan, Semyon Bychkov, and Dennis Russell Davies.
She has performed in many renowned concert venues, including the Vienna Musikverein, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Herkulessaal in Munich, Berlin Philharmonie, Tonhalle Zürich, Lucerne KKL, Bozar in Brussels, Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, and the Hollywood Bowl. Her festival appearances include Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Bad Kissingen, Verbier, La Roque d’Anthéron, Bucharest Enescu Festival, San Francisco Performances, the Chicago Symphony recital series, Aspen, and Ravinia Festivals.
She also takes pleasure in educational outreach and conducts master classes in many of the cities in which she performs.
Her extensive discography on Naïve includes critically acclaimed recordings such as an all-Chopin album and the Liszt album, which was awarded a Diapason d'Or in Gramophone magazine. Her latest releases include When Do We Dance?, which explores a century of dance music with elegance and flair, and Phantasmagoria, dedicated to Liszt and featuring his famous Sonata.
Lise de la Salle began playing piano at age four and gave her first concert at nine, broadcast live on Radio France. A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, she studied with Pascal Nemirovski and was mentored by Geneviève Joy-Dutilleux. She won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York in 2004.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Lili Boulanger
Ernest Chausson
A firm believer that a performer’s musical expression stems less from “sudden inspiration” than from experiences such as “visiting museums, going to the theatre, listening to music, and reading,” French pianist Lise de la Salle has spent the past 20 years honing what Le Monde described as a rare level of pure self-evidence: “She makes it impossible to imagine any other interpretation” of any piece in the repertoire. Soloist in Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1, she will open a programme that also includes works by Lili Boulanger and Ernest Chausson, under the direction of the young French conductor Samy Rachid.
Sponsor Piano and Orchestra Concertos
Sponsor Gulbenkian Music
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