Finalists will be announced on June 3
Programme
6 pm - 8 pm
Final Concert
Overture
G. Rossini
(La Gazza Ladra)
Finalist 1 - 2 arias
Finalist 2 - 2 arias
Finalist 3 - 2 arias
Finalist 4 - 2 arias
Intermezzo
Ruggiero Leoncavallo
(Pagliacci)
Finalist 5 - 2 arias
Finalist 6 - 2 arias
Finalist 7 - 2 arias
Finalist 8 - 2 arias
Coda
Johann Strauss II
Champagner-Lied “Im Feuerstrom der Reben” (Die Fledermaus)
8 pm - 9.15 pm
Break for deliberation
Talk: One day we’ll all go to the opera
Topic: Without patrons, there is no *La Traviata*, with:
Ana Proença - Associação Égide
Embassador António Monteiro - Fundação Millennium bcp
José Pena do Amaral - BPI Fundação La Caixa
Jorge Leitão - Leitão & Irmão Joalheiros
Moderator - Hugo Van der Ding
Antonio Pirolli
Conductor
Born in Rome, he studied piano, composition, choral music and orchestral conducting at the Santa Cecilia Academy. He trained with Zoltán Peskó, Vladimir Delman and Rudolf Barshai and won 3rd prize at the Arturo Toscanini Competition in Parma.
From 1995 to 2001, he was music director at the Ankara Opera Theater, and from 2001 to 2005 he held the same position at the Istanbul State Opera. His past and most recent engagements include: Lucia di Lammermoor in Buenos Aires and Bari; La Gioconda in Santander; Andrea Chénier in Berlin and Catania; Macbeth in Lisbon; Aida in Copenhagen and Caracalla; Il trovatore, Anna Bolena and Ernani in Catania; Tosca in Florence and Bari; Turandot in Copenhagen, Verona and Catania; Aroldo in Bilbao; Il barbiere di Siviglia in Tokyo, Valencia and Verona; Carmen in Copenhagen and Avenches; Faust in Tokyo and Santander; Un ballo in maschera in Salerno and Lisbon; Madama Butterfly in Ancona; Medea on the As. Li.Co. circuit; Norma in Trapani and Spalato; Attila in Lecce and Rome; Otello in Lisbon; Manon Lescaut in Torre del Lago; Nabucco in Caracalla and Lisbon; Rigoletto in Tokyo; Falstaff in Shanghai; and La forza del destino in Lisbon.
He is currently principal conductor of the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra.
Inês Thomas Almeida
Presenter and Musicologist
Inês Thomas Almeida holds a PhD in Historical Musicology from NOVA University of Lisbon (NOVA) and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the same institution. In 2025, she was FLAD/Saab Visiting Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA, and in 2026 she will be Visiting Professor at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Münster, Germany.
She is the creator and lecturer of the course *_Women Composers: History of Female Composition from Middle Ages to the 21st Century_* at the NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities. She is also a Visiting Professor in the PhD in Gender Studies (NOVA FCSH / ISCSP-UL / NOVA School of Law).
She is a researcher at the Institute of Ethnomusicology – Centre for Studies in Music and Dance (INET-md) at NOVA FCSH and Co-Coordinator of the Thematic Research Line in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research project _FEMUS 18 – Spaces and Profiles of Women *making* Music in 18th-Century Portugal_ is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for 2024–2030. She is also Science Communication Coordinator of the COST Action _Print Culture and Public Spheres in Central Europe (1500–1800)_, funded by the European Union for 2024–2028 and involving 203 researchers from 36 countries.
Her research areas in historical musicology focus on 18th-century music, travel accounts, women in music, early ballad traditions, Lusophone and postcolonial studies, and transnational cultural networks.
She was *Deputy* Curator of the commemorative exhibition dedicated to Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and co-author, with Rui Vieira Nery, of the book _Let’s Take Risks: Selected Texts by Madalena de Azeredo Perdigão_ (Tinta-da-China, 2023).
She has published widely in specialized journals and is a regular speaker at national and international conferences. She has been invited to give lectures at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Madrid, and Vienna universities.
She was included by CIG – Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality in the _Women for Equality_ list, which recognizes women in science, politics, culture, and activism.
Hugo van der Ding
Moderator
Hugo van der Ding is an author and a regular presence on radio and television. Since 2019, he has hosted the programme Vamos Todos Morrer on Antena 3, where he also created and presented Duas Pessoas a Conversar and Vamos Para a Tua Terra. On RTP 3, he hosted Duas Pessoas a Fazer Televisão. In addition to writing theatre plays, he is the author of eight books, the most recent being Uma Família Surreal (2025). Among other projects, he also created the podcast Vamos Viajar na Maionese.
Cascais Symphony Orchestra
With the support of the Municipality of Cascais, OCCO became involved in 2015 in the creation of the Cascais Symphony Orchestra. Aiming to complete and enhance the musical offering of Cascais and Portugal as a whole, the Cascais Symphony Orchestra established itself from the outset with a season of six concerts per year.
The orchestra is composed of full-time musicians from OCCO – Orquestra de Câmara de Cascais e Oeiras, alongside young instrumentalists selected through public auditions.
Its symphonic concerts have become a cultural reference in Cascais and across the region, thanks to carefully curated and engaging repertoire choices and the participation of internationally acclaimed solo artists such as Artur Pizarro, Luís Rodrigues, Svetlin Roussev, Alexander Somov, Iddo Bar-Shai, Douglas Nasrawi, and Romain Garioud, among others, as well as outstanding young talents including Vasco Dantas, Cristiana Oliveira, Anna Paulová, Lilia Donkova, Anastasia Kobekina, and Sofia Vasheruk. The orchestra has also welcomed distinguished guest conductors, including Thomas Sanderling and Richard Rosenberg.
Performances at the Auditório Nossa Senhora da Boa Nova in Estoril and on the main stage of the Festas do Mar stand as testimony to the excellence of this project, which attracts audiences of all ages.
The Cascais Symphony Orchestra is led by its Artistic Director, Maestro Nikolay Lalov.
