Partitura · December 2025

If we wish to grasp the importance of music to Christmas, we need only imagine what Christmas would be like without it. The sparkle of lights, ornaments, and children’s eyes, the warmth of embraces, the joy of smiles, the excitement of unwrapping gifts — all of it would lose its glow without the melodies that carry the spirit of the season to every heart. It is, therefore, with a gratifying sense of purpose that Casa da Música dedicates its final festival of the season each year to Christmas. 

Led by Coro Casa da Música, we journey to unexpected places for this time of year, hearing works that shape the Christmas of the tropics, written in various languages. Our Symphony Orchestra offers a programme rich in fantasy and adventure, featuring one of Tchaikovsky’s great ballets, The Nutcracker, alongside a score by John Williams for the first Harry Potter film and an excerpt from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Christmas Eve. Finally, Orquestra Barroca, together with our adult and children’s choirs, performs Telemann’s Magnificat, a musical monument evoking the divine choice of Mary as the mother of Jesus. 

Like twinkling lights on a tree, family-oriented Christmas concerts appear throughout the month. One brings together Coro Infantil Casa da Música and the collective Jovens Cantores de Guimarães in a Christmas repertoire that takes us from Portugal to Hawaii, with a stop in Israel. Another, with an educational twist, invites us to discover — in our pajamas — the magic of waiting for presents, celebrating shared moments and the warmth of song. There are also the traditional school concerts, this year featuring ensembles from Conservatório de Música do Porto, Academia de Música de Costa Cabral, and Grupo Musica da Mocidade Perosinhense. 

Beyond the stockings, December holds many more gifts. On separate dates, our Symphony Orchestra presents a programme of works of profound existen-tial meaning by Richard Wagner, Hans Werner Henze, and Johannes Brahms, as well as another that pairs Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with the final chapter of artist residencies by Liza Lim and João Carlos Pinto at Casa da Música. Remix Ensemble revisits Frank Zappa’s last orchestral work, Yellow Shark, premiered in 1992 by the Ensemble Modern under the direction of Peter Rundel — who also conducts this concert. Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos pays tribute to the legacy of the iconic New York club Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, while ESMAE Big Band, made up of jazz students from the School of Music and Performing Arts, offers a glimpse of the future of jazz in Portugal. Among artists representing diverse aesthetic worlds, we highlight Wardruna and their mystical sound born from the depths of the Norwegian forest, along with a rich range of national performers — from Banda Sinfónica Portuguesa (featuring soprano Sílvia Sequeira) to UHF, tributes by Cristina Branco to José Afonso and by José Peixoto & Nuno Cintrão to Carlos Paredes, the 20th anniversary of Noiserv, and the 30th of Tara Perdida, as well as special concerts by Rui Massena, Delfins, Buda Power Blues, and Klin Klop. Discover it all in this issue of Partitura, including our ever-vibrant educational activities, and join us in celebrating the magic of music as it walks, enchan-ted, toward Christmas. Season’s Greetings! 

Who was Frank Zappa (1940-1993)? Upon his death, the American media called him a rock musician, famous for elaborate and unconventional songs with daring lyrics, for his criticism of the music industry, the educational system, and the political scene, for his clashes with the Church and the police, and for having been banned from radio stations. But there was much more, not always captured by the media lens. Within that “walking mass of contradictions” (in the words of Ruth Underwood) pulsed a creative vision of such breadth that it still bewilders today, averse to subterfuge, from which sprang a legacy as absolutely free as it was considered, as multifaceted as it was coherent and personal.