Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música

BIOGRAPHY

Stefan Blunier principal conductor

Leopold Hager conductor emeritus

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, Jörg Widmann, Ryan Wigglesworth, Antoni Wit, Christian Zacharias, Lothar Zagrosek, Nuno Coelho, Pedro Neves, Joana Carneiro, Abel Pereira, Tito Ceccherini and Clemens Schuldt. 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, Philippe Manoury, Rebecca Saunders and Enno Poppe.

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, Cologne, Valladolid, Madrid, Santiago de Compostela and Brazil. In 2024, it will share the stage with Arditti Quartet in the Räsonanz concert of the Ernst Von Siemens Music Foundation, presented by the Bavarian Radio’s Musica Viva series. This season also brings the performance of the complete Prokofiev piano concertos and new commissions from Portuguese composers Vasco Mendonça and Daniel Moreira.

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), Peter Eötvös (2021) and Magnus Lindberg (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.

Principal conductor

STEFAN BLUNIER

Stefan Blunier became the principal conductor of Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música at the beginning of 2021. In addition to his commitments in Porto, the 2021/22 season saw him conducting Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Berner Symphonieorchester, Orchester der TU Darmstadt, L’Orchestre de l’Opéra de Toulon and Singapore Symphony Orchestra. He returns to Deutsche Oper am Rhein to conduct Verdi’s Macbeth.

Following the enormous success of the new production of Berg’s Wozzeck at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in 2017, Blunier was immediately invited to work on a new production of Der Zigeunerbaron. He then conducted Lohengrin at the Oper Frankfurt where he was also successful with Dafne, Tristan und Isolde and Carmen. He is a frequent guest at Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he recently conducted Carmen, Salome and Die Fledermaus. He also conducted Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites at the Staatsoper Hamburg, Les contes d’Hoffmann at Nasjonaloperaen (Oslo) and Komische Oper Berlin and a new production of Schreker’s Der ferne Klang at Kungliga Operan.

With productions such as Eugen d’Albert’s Der Golem and Schreker’s Irrelohe, Stefan Blunier helped the Beethoven Orchester and the Oper Bonn gain prestige beyond their region during his tenure as the city’s general music director until 2016. Both operas were recorded by Dabringhaus & Grimm and received several awards: ECHO 2011 (Golem) and 2012 (Irrelohe), as well as the German Record Critics’ Award 2012 (Irrelohe). His work with this orchestra included recording an impressive discography, featuring rarely performed works by Anton Bruckner, Franz Liszt and Franz Schmidt, as well as creating a Beethoven cycle.

As an opera conductor, Stefan Blunier has performed in cities such as Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Montpellier, Oslo, Bern and London. As a guest conductor, he has conducted almost all Deutsche Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester, Gewandhausorchester of Leipzig , Duisburger Philharmoniker, Museumskonzerte Frankfurt and many orchestras in Denmark, Belgium, East Asia, Switzerland and France. More recently, he has conducted NHK Symphony (Japan), BBC Scottish Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and Philharmonie zuidnederland (Netherlands), Kringkastingsorkestret (Norway) and Japan Century Symphony Orchestra. Alongside his commitments in Bonn, he was the principal guest conductor of Nationaal Orkest van België (Belgium — 2010-2013).

A native of Bern (Switzerland), Stefan Blunier studied piano, horn, composition and orchestral conducting in Bern and at the Folkwang Universität der Künste Essen. He is the founder of Ensemble für Neue Musik Essen. After participating successfully in the Besançon and Malko conducting competitions, he was appointed associate principal conductor in Mannheim and music director and principal conductor in Darmstadt (2001-2008), before taking on his role as general music director of Oper Bonn and Beethoven Orchester (2008-2016).