Reading of Letter to My Children on Goya’s Executions by Jorge de Sena, performed by Rosinda Costa.
Fernando Lopes-Graça: Prelude, Song and Dance (1928)
Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975)
This recital by pianist José Pedro Ribeiro brings together two major figures in musical creation who turned art into a space for ethical, political and aesthetic resistance.
The programme brings into dialogue Frederic Rzewski’s monumental work The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975) with a piece by Fernando Lopes-Graça, a Portuguese composer deeply marked by his civic commitment and opposition to the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo. In both cases, music asserts itself as an act of conscience and intervention, transforming sound into a space of memory, critique and hope.
Inspired by the famous Chilean song associated with popular struggles in Latin America, Rzewski’s work constructs a vast cycle of variations that explores the expressive and technical limits of the piano, combining virtuosity, improvisation, sonic experimentation and political reflection. In Lopes-Graça’s music, meanwhile, the relationship between popular tradition, aesthetic modernity and ethical commitment translates into a style of composition that is intense and deeply rooted in Portuguese cultural and social reality.
Performed by one of the most outstanding Portuguese pianists of his generation, this recital offers a listening experience that goes beyond the mere musical gesture to affirm the piano as a space for thought and resistance. In a festival that embraces insurgency as a vital necessity against indifference and the normalisation of violence, these works remind us that music can also be an act of defiance, a form of active memory and a horizon of freedom.
José Pedro Ribeiro (b. 1995) has established himself as one of the most active Portuguese pianists on the current scene, performing regularly at major concert halls and festivals both in Portugal and abroad.
Winner of the Young Musicians Award in Piano (2019) and Chamber Music (2017, with the Adamastor Trio), he has maintained a consistent career both as a soloist and in chamber music, standing out for the versatility of his repertoire and his focus on 20th- and 21st-century music.
He performs regularly at institutions such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Casa da Música, the Belém Cultural Centre, the São Luiz Theatre and the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, as well as at festivals such as the Póvoa de Varzim International Music Festival, Música no Termo, the Estoril Festival and the World New Music Days Festival.
He has collaborated with various orchestras and ensembles, establishing a career marked by artistic rigour and a diversity of performance contexts.
