Casa da Música

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Highlights

Presentation

The origins of the orchestra date back to 1947, when the Orquestra Sinfónica do Conservatório de Música do Porto was formed, later performing under different names.

Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música works regularly with well known conductors such as Stefan Blunier, Baldur Brönnimann, Olari Elts, Peter Eötvös, Heinz Holliger, Elihau Inbal, Michail Jurowski, Christoph König, Reinbert de Leeuw, Andris Nelsons, Vasily Petrenko, Emilio Pomàrico, Peter Rundel, Michael Sanderling, Vassily Sinaisky, Tugan Sokhiev, John Storgårds, Joseph Swensen, Ilan Volkov, Jörg Widmann, Ryan Wigglesworth, Antoni Wit, Christian Zacharias and Lothar Zagrosek. It has worked with some of the foremost contemporary composers, from Emmanuel Nunes to Jonathan Harvey, Kaija Saariaho, Magnus Lindberg, Pascal Dusapin, Luca Francesconi, Unsuk Chin, Peter Eötvös, Helmut Lachenmann, Georges Aperghis, Heinz Holliger, Harrison Birtwistle, Georg Friedrich Haas, Jörg Widmann, and Philippe Manoury.

Apart from performing around fifty concerts per year at Casa da Música, it is increasingly seen outside Porto, having visited in recent seasons Vienna, Strasbourg, Luxembourg, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Valladolid, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela and Brazil. It will debut at the Kölner Philharmonie in 2021. This season also brings the performance of Sibelius symphonies and new commissions from composers Luca Francesconi, Francesco Filidei and Carlos Lopes.

In recent seasons the orchestra has performed all of Mahler, Prokofiev, Brahms and Bruckner’s symphonies; Beethoven and Rachmaninov’s piano concertos; and Mozart’s violin concertos. In 2011, the recording “Follow the Songlines” won the jazz vocal category at the prestigious Victoires de la musique awards in France. 2013 saw the release on the Naxos label of the piano concertos by Lopes-Graça. Gramophone has included the CD featuring works by Pascal Dusapin, performed by Orquestra Sinfónica and Remix Ensemble Casa da Música, in its Critics’ Choice 2013. New CDs with live recordings were released the following years featuring works by Luca Francesconi (2014), Unsuk Chin (2015), Georges Aperghis (2017), Harrison Birtwistle (2020) and Peter Eötvös (2021), alongside with Portuguese contemporary music and the complete Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos (2017).

The origins of the orchestra date back to 1947, when the Orquestra Sinfónica do Conservatório de Música do Porto was formed, later performing under different names. It has 94 permanent members, and it has been part of Fundação Casa da Música since July 2006.
Stefan Blunier

Conductor

Stefan Blunier has been chief conductor of the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música since the beginning of 2021. In addition to his engagements in Porto, Stefan Blunier will conduct in the 2021/22 season the Orchestre Suisse Romande, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the Darmstadt State Orchestra, l'Orchestre symphonique de l'Opéra de Toulon and the Singapore Symphony. At the Deutsche Oper am Rhein he will return with Verdi's Macbeth.

After a great success of a new production of Bergs´ Wozzeck at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2017, Mr. Blunier was immediately engaged for a new production of The Gypsy Baron. He then led Lohengrin at the Frankfurt Opera, where he last celebrated successes with Daphne, as well as with Tristan and Isolde and Carmen. He is a regular guest at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he most recently conducted Carmen, Salome and Die Fledermaus. At the Staatsoper Hamburg he conducted Poulenc's Dialogue des Carmelites, as well as The Tales of Hoffmann at Den Norske Opera in Oslo and at Komische Oper Berlin. He conducted a new production of Schreker’s Der ferne Klang at the Royal Swedish Opera.

With productions such as Der Golem by Eugen d 'Albert and Irrelohe by Franz Schreker, Mr. Blunier helped the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn and the Bonn Opera House to gain supraregional attention during his tenure as GMD until 2016. Both productions are now available as complete recordings at Dabringhaus & Grimm and have been awarded numerous prizes: the ECHO 2011 (Golem) and 2012 (Irrelohe) as well as the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik 1/2012 (Irrelohe). At that time, he also recorded an impressive discography in Bonn, with rarely heard works by Anton Bruckner, Franz Liszt and Franz Schmidt as well as a Beethoven cycle was created.

Other opera engagements have led Mr. Blunier to such opera houses in further cities such as Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Montpellier, Oslo, Bern, and London, a.o.

Mr. Blunier’s guest-conducting engagements have taken him to nearly all the German radio orchestras as well as the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, Duisburg Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Museumskonzerte, and numerous orchestras in Denmark, Belgium, the Far East, Switzerland and France. Recent highlights include the NHK Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, South Netherlands Philharmonic, Norwegian Radio, and the Century Symphony Orchestra of Osaka. Alongside his appointment in Bonn, he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre National de Belgique (2010-2013).

Stefan Blunier was born in Bern, Switzerland and studied piano, horn, composition and conducting in Bern and at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen. He is also a founder of the Ensemble für Neue Musik Essen. The early part of career began with successes in the Besançon and Malko Conducting Competitions, which were followed by appointments in Mannheim (Associate Chief Conductor) and Darmstadt (Music Director and Chief Conductor 2001-2008). From 2008-2016 he served as General Music Director of the Opera Bonn and Beethovenorchester Bonn.
- Christian Zacharias
  
  direcção musical
- Leopold Hager
  
  conductor
Musicians

Composition Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música
- Evgeny Makhtin
  
  Section Leader
- James Dahlgren
  
  honorary section leader - Violin
- Álvaro Pereira
  
  2nd Section Leader - Violin
- Alan Guimarães
  
  Violin
- Radu Ungureanu
  
  Assistant Section Leader - Violin
- Andras Burai
  
  Violin
- Emilia Vanguelova
  
  Violin
- Evandra Gonçalves
  
  Violin
- José Despujols
  
  Violin
- Ianina Khmelik
  
  Violin
- Maria Kagan
  
  violin
- Roumiana Badeva
  
  Violin
- Tünde Hadadi
  
  Violin
- Vadim Feldblioum
  
  violin
- Vladimir Grinman
  
  Violin
- Ana Madalena Ribeiro
  
  Head of section - Violin
- Nancy Frederick
  
  Co-principal - Violin
- Tatiana Afanasieva
  
  sub-principal - Violin
- Domingos Lopes
  
  Violin
- José Paulo Jesus
  
  Violin
- Karolina Andrzejczak
  
  violin
- Lilit Davtyan
  
  Violin
- Mariana Costa
  
  Violin
- Nikola Vasiljev
  
  Violin
- Paul Almond
  
  Violin
- Pedro Rocha
  
  Violin
- Catarina Martins
  
  violin - Violin
- Mateusz Stasto
  
  Head of section - viola
- Joana Pereira
  
  Co-principal - viola
- Anna Gonera
  
  sub-principal - viola
- Biliana Chamlieva
  
  viola
- Emília Alves
  
  viola
- Francisco Moreira
  
  viola
- Hazel Veitch
  
  viola
- Jean-Loup Lecomte
  
  viola
- Luís Norberto Silva
  
  viola
- Rute Azevedo
  
  viola
- Theo Ellegiers
  
  viola
- Nikolai Gimaletdinov
  
  Head of section - cello
- Vicente Chuaqui
  
  Co-principal - cello
- Feodor Kolpashnikov
  
  sub-principal - cello
- Aaron Choi
  
  cello
- Bruno Cardoso
  
  cello
- Hrant Yeranosyan
  
  cello
- Michal Kiska
  
  cello
- Sharon Kinder
  
  cello
- João Cunha
  
  cello - cello
- Irene Alvar
  
  cello - cello
- Rui Rodrigues
  
  Head of section - double bass
- Florian Pertzborn
  
  Co-principal - double bass
- Altino Carvalho
  
  double bass
- Joel Azevedo
  
  double bass
- Nadya Choi
  
  double bass
- Slawomir Marzec
  
  double bass
- Tiago Pinto Ribeiro
  
  double bass
- Paulo Barros
  
  Head of section - flute
- Ana Maria Ribeiro
  
  Co-principal - flute
- Alexander Auer
  
  sub-principal - flute
- Angelina Rodrigues
  
  sub-principal - flute
- Aldo Salvetti
  
  Head of section - Oboe
- Tamás Bartók
  
  Co-principal - Oboe
- Eldevina Materula
  
  sub-principal - Oboe
- Roberto Henriques
  
  sub-principal - Oboe
- Luís Silva
  
  Head of section - clarinet
- Carlos Alves
  
  Co-principal - clarinet
- Gergely Suto
  
  sub-principal - clarinet
- João Moreira
  
  sub-principal - clarinet
- Gavin Hill
  
  Head of section - bassoon
- Robert Glassburner
  
  Co-principal - bassoon
- Vasily Suprunov
  
  sub-principal - bassoon
- Nuno Vaz
  
  Head of section - tube
- Bohdan Sebestik
  
  Co-principal - tube
- Eduard Tauber
  
  Co-principal - tube
- Hugo Carneiro
  
  sub-principal - tube
- José Bernardo Silva
  
  Solista A interino - tube
- Sérgio Pacheco
  
  Head of section - trumpet
- Ivan Crespo
  
  Co-principal - trumpet
- Luís Granjo
  
  sub-principal - trumpet
- Rui Brito
  
  sub-principal - trumpet
- Severo Martínez
  
  Head of section - trombone
- Dawid Seidenberg
  
  Co-principal - trombone
- Nuno Martins
  
  sub-principal - trombone
- Sérgio Carolino
  
  Co-principal - tuba
- Jean-François Lézé
  
  Timpaneiro solista
- Bruno Costa
  
  Co-principal - percussion
- Nuno Simões
  
  sub-principal - percussion
- Paulo Oliveira
  
  sub-principal - percussion
- Ilaria Vivan
  
  Co-principal - Harp
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