The Setúbal Music Festival

by Ian Ritchie

The Festival's Artistic Director

feat. Joana Praça

&

The Ann Waterfall Award Presentation

Tuesday, 29 January 2019

6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

By Kind Permission of 

His Excellency Manuel Lobo Antunes 

The Portuguese Ambassador 

the talk and reception will be held at 

The Residence of The Portuguese Ambassador

12 Belgrave Square, London, SW1X 8PN 

Ian Ritchie trained as a singer at the Royal College of Music and continued his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a choral scholar, and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.  During a musical career of more than 40 years he has directed several prominent arts organisations, including the City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Opera North, St Magnus Festival (Orkney) and the City of London Festival. Ian is committed to providing opportunities for musicians of all backgrounds and abilities. Among his current charitable activities, he has helped to set up Music Action International which works creatively with refugees and asylum seekers.

In 2010 Ian was invited by the Helen Hamlyn Trust in London and the Setúbal Municipality in Portugal to set up the Setúbal Music Festival and has remained as its Artistic Director ever since. Now approaching its 9th edition in 2019 (23rd-27th May), the Festival has proved from the outset to be a unique cultural phenomenon, bringing together internationally-acclaimed guest artists with the local community - including almost 1,500 young people who are engaged each year in creative workshops and collaborative performances - in making music and enriching the cultural life of Setúbal and its surrounding area. Visitors to the Festival enjoy performances and events in several of the City's beautiful and historic buildings.

Special performance by Joana Praça

Joana Praça, a young violinist from Setúbal, will join Ian and play two short pieces. In addition to Bach’s much-loved ‘Sarabande’ from Partita No 1, she will perform ‘Sala Pequena’ by Margarida Gonçalves, a gifted composition student still at school in Setúbal, who was invited by the Setúbal Music Festival to write this piece for the 2018 Festival.

Joana has taken part in every edition of the Festival since the first in 2011, when she was a young school girl; she later became the leading violinist of our socially-inclusive Youth Ensemble; now she is a student at the Guildhall School and returning to Setúbal again in May as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player.

The Festival

Ian will tell us about the Festival: how it has expanded and developed over the past eight years - including the creation of the Setúbal Youth Ensemble, a pioneering model of social inclusion - and his current plans to establish a national Centre for Music, Health & Wellbeing in the city. With its local roots and international partners, this annual event promotes the careers of young musicians and composers and enables young people with special needs to play music with the assistance of modern technology. It has had a great impact upon its community as a whole and the lives of young Portuguese musicians in particular. 

The Anglo-Portuguese Society has chosen to support the Setubal Music Festival as part of its educational and charitable endeavours.