The International Music Festival of the Viseu Spring will, from April 5 to 27, take more than 20 concerts to nine rooms in the city and allow music students to contact internationally renowned trainers.
[dropcap type=”background”]D[/dropcap]uring the presentation of the festival, held today, its artistic director, José Carlos Sousa, highlighted the concerts on 7 and 14, with the “silver house”, ie teachers and students of the Conservatory Dr José Azeredo Perdigão, respectively.
José Carlos Sousa also highlighted the five concerts with orchestras, which will take place on the 12th, 13th, 18th, 21st and 25th, in the Aula Magna of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, in the Sé and in the Multipurpose Pavilion.
The Viseu Youth Orchestra, the Portuguese Philharmonic Orchestra with the Norwegian violinist Eldbjorg Hemsing, the Portuguese Philharmonic Orchestra with the Russian cellist Pavel Gomziakov, the Filarmonia Orchestra of Beiras with the Choir Voz Nua and the Orchestra XXI with the Lisbon Cantat Symphonic Choir will show during the festival.
“We invited musicians from Brazil, Ukraine, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Cuba, Argentina, Poland, Croatia, Norway and England, soloists with orchestras or soloists“, stressed the artistic director.
The opening concert of the festival, on April 5, will be dedicated to the Portuguese guitar, with the Pedro Caldeira Cabral Trio.
During the festival, the audience will be able to enjoy concerts of various types of music: old, instrumental, solo, chamber, orchestral, symphonic choral and performed with a computer.
Despite the importance of these concerts to the general public, the official stressed that “the festival is much more than that“.
“We intend to meet people who can not attend the festival concerts,” he said, explaining that there will be pedagogical concerts in schools and institutions.
In this context, there will be 20 pedagogical concerts that will reach about two thousand people of different ages, in different contexts.
One of the highlights of the festival is the Viseu International Piano and Guitar Competition, which this year is dedicated to the first instrument and will award prizes worth 13,500 euros.
“The entries are open until April 15, but we already have competitors from eight registered nationalities: Russia, Israel, China, Korea, the United States, Australia, Ukraine and Canada,” said José Carlos Sousa, adding that there are still no competitors. Portugal.
The festival will also have masterclass dedicated to the Portuguese guitar (Pedro Caldeira Cabral), the clarinet (Carlos Piçarra Alves), drums and improvisation (André Silva and Elmano Coelho), the accordion (Franck Angelis), the violin (Roberto Valdés) , to the piano (Shao Xiao Ling, Luís Pipa, Giuseppe Andaloro and Aquiles Dele Vigne), to the cello (Miguel Rocha) and to the guitar (Dejan Ivanovic).
“We always try to make the musicians we invite, whether they are members of the jury of the international competition, are musicians who will play in our festival, train our students and others who may be interested,” said the artistic director.
