It was more than sixteen years ago, in 2004, that cellist Raquel Reis performed in front of OAM the Variations on a Rococo Theme by Tchaikovsky. She had recently graduated as an Orchestra Instrumentalist at the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra. Three years later she joined the Gulbenkian Orchestra, where she has been building a brilliant career.
The celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Metropolitana is now a great reason for a reunion, once again with the conductor Jean-Marc Burfin and the same "rococo" melody that is transformed into successive variations by the hand of the Russian composer.
This time, Raquel will also perform Dvořák's Silent Forests, a short and delightful piece composed in 1883 for piano for 4 hands, but that would become a decade later in the version for cello and orchestra that we know better today.
The program ends in the bucolic register of Symphony No. 8 by the same Dvořák, a Pastoral Symphony that lulls us into rustic sonorities, danceable rhythmic patterns, and good cheer.
