The Orquestra Académica Metropolitana (OAM) made its debut in 1993, following the creation of the Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra (ANSO) – a unique institution in the country designed to train professional musicians in the fields of instruments and orchestral conducting. Since its inception, the OAM has been led by Jean-Marc Burfin, its principal conductor.

Initially made up of less than thirty members, the OAM is now a symphonic formation comprising around 70 musicians. With a season that runs throughout each academic year, the OAM maintains a regular activity of rehearsals and concerts, performing not only in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area but also in other parts of the country.

With many hundreds of concerts performed, covering a repertoire that ranges from the Baroque to 20th century music, the OAM has performed works by composers as representative as Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Mahler, Ravel, Debussy, Milhaud, Bartók, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Varèse, among others.

In addition to its principal conductor, the OAM is usually led by orchestral conducting students. Many of the concerts feature guest conductors such as Jean-Sébastien Béreau, Pascal Rophé, Robert Delcroix and Brian Schembri.

The OAM also allows ANSO students to perform solo with orchestra on a regular basis. They have also had the privilege of playing with several renowned soloists such as António Rosado, Gerardo Ribeiro, Paulo Gaio Lima, Liliane Bizineche, Francine Romain, Miguel Borges Coelho, Artur Pizarro, François Leleux and, in a humorous concert, the Italian quartet Banda Osiris.

Among its travels, the OAM took part in Porto 2001 Capital of Culture, an international meeting of youth orchestras where it played Britten’s War Requiem. It toured the Azores several times and took part in the VII International Cycle of University Orchestras in Zaragoza, and took to the stage of the Theâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels.

The Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra is a unique institution in the country in the way it links training with musical practice. Specifically designed to prepare professional musicians in the areas of Instrument and Orchestra Conducting, the teaching provided here is based on specialised individual accompaniment, chamber music practice and a complementary theoretical component, with the Orquestra Académica Metropolitana being the central axis of the training of these young musicians.

The pedagogical results are clearly evident in the number of students who have won prizes in renowned competitions, the admissions of students trained here to the best international schools and the high employability rate of these young people when they reach the labour market.