Pianist Vasco Dantas represents Portugal at the Young Soloists Festival
“No Festival participates seven European soloists, two of them in person and the other five virtually, from Europe. Portugal will be represented by the pianist Vasco Dantas, remotely,” said the ambassador.
According to the diplomat, the Festival takes place “after a year of occurrence of the scenarios” due to the quarantine of covid-19 and will be carried out “with respect to biosecurity measures” to prevent the new coronavirus.
“The program, consisting of three shows, includes, for the first time, two free recitals in different spaces in the city of Caracas and the cultural exchange was organized by the European Union Delegation in Venezuela, in alliance with the National System of Youth Orchestras and Choirs and Infantis de Venezuela,” he explained.
In addition to the Portuguese Vasco Dantas Rocha, the festival also brings together pianists Luana Kaslin, from France and Joanna Sochacka from Poland. Also Theo Plath (concertinist) from Germany, David Antigüedad (guitar) from Spain, Gergely Lukács (tuba) from Hungary and Sebastián Braun (cellist) from Switzerland.
On the Venezuelan side, she will participate in the Aequalis Aurea Women’s Choir, the Schola Cantorum Group of Venezuela and the Mozarteum Music School in Caracas.
The program includes 11 master classes, in person and online, in which more than three dozen young Venezuelan musicians participate.
Portuguese pianist Vasco Dantas Rocha was born in 1992 in Porto and has won more than 50 awards and distinctions in international competitions, including the Grand Prize at the International Piano Competition of Valletta (Malta), the Prix Spécial at the International Piano Competition SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem (in Morocco).
Also the 1st Prize at the International City of Vigo (in Spain) and the International of Porto Santa Cecília and Estoril-Lisboa Interpretation, the Golden Medal of Merit (from Matosinhos), the Casa da Música Award and Münster Steinway & Sons (Germany )
He has performed at Hong Kong City Hall, at the Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and at Carnegie Hall in New York.
He was a soloist at the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra (Moscow), the Philharmonic Portuguese, the Hong Kong Symphony, the Lisbon Metropolitan, the Espírito Santo Symphony (Brazil), the Porto Symphony, the Portuguese Symphony and the Südwestdeutschlands kammerorchester (Germany ) ,
He worked with Choi Semeado Le, Daniel Cohen, Dinis Sousa, Douglas Bostock, Günter Neuhold, Jan Wierzba, Joshua dos Santos, Martin André, Misha Rachlevsky, Osvaldo Ferreira, Pedro Carneiro, Pedro Neves, Peter Sauerwein, Rui Pinheiro, Vassily Sinaisky and Victor Hugo Toro, on international tours.
He started studying piano at the age of 4 and two years later he made his first public performance, at RTP. In 2000 he was admitted with distinction at the Conservatório de Música do Porto, where he studied with Rosgard Lingardson. ~
Alongside the piano, at the age of 7 he began to study the violin. He graduated in Music at the Royal College of Music in London, under the pianistic supervision of Dmitri Alexeev and Niel Immelman.
He also studies directing with Peter Stark and Natalia Luis-Bassa and holds a master’s degree in performance and a doctorate “Konzertexamen” directed by Heribert Koch at the University of Münster.
He obtained a ‘master’ in music education from the University of Aveiro and an Art of Teaching diploma from the RCM in London. He is artistic director of the Algarve Music Cycle and has several works recorded on compact disc for Antena 2, ARS Produktion, Coviello Classics, Rádio Galega, MPMP and KNS Classical.
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