ARTISTIC DIRECTION | MARIANA OTTOSSON

The Metropolitana’s Youth Orchestra (OJM) brings together students from the strings, wind instruments and percussion classes of the Instrument Course of the Metropolitana’s Music Conservatory who are over eleven years old. It is one of several formations of this school which translates the specific vocation of the Metropolitana project.

It develops its activity in the same physical space as the Classical Orchestra and Metropolitana’s Academic Orchestra – the orchestral formations of the Professional School and National Academy  – and also the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, which is composed of professional musicians. This daily coexistence provides a sharing of experiences that contributes decisively to the technical and artistic training of the youngest musicians, but also to their development as individuals, integrated in a culturally stimulating context, in which methodical and disciplined work is valued.

In the academic year 2013/2014 developed an academic exchange partnership with the Choir Con Dios (Lund) and the Kulturskolan Conservatory (Lund) in Sweden. In the following academic year, it was Pedro Jóia and Ricardo Ribeiro’s turn to join OJM in the interpretation of famous themes from the Fado repertoire, questioning boundaries between styles and generations. Also noteworthy are the concerts dedicated to the soundtrack of the film The Wizard of Oz, which together with Percussões da Metropolitana took place in 2016 on the stages of the Grande Auditório of the Centro Cultural de Belém and Ruínas do Carmo, and also the orchestra internships open to students from other educational establishments.

At the end of the 2016/2017 school year, this initiative had the pianist and teacher Artur Pizarro as a guest, resulting in the interpretation of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in D Minor at the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. In the 2017/2018 academic year, it premiered the original work “D “as Fábulas de La Fontaine, a commission from Metropolitana to composer Lino Guerreiro within the scope of the inauguration of LU.CA – Teatro Luís de Camões at the invitation of the Lisbon City Council.

In 2018/2019, OJM will participate in the season of the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa as part of the project Histórias da Formiga Rabiga, which will feature the premiere of the original work O Principezinho, commissioned by Metropolitana to composer Sérgio Azevedo.