The Setúbal Music Festival, now in its seventh edition, continues to be a unique cultural phenomenon, bringing internationally acclaimed guest artists, from Portugal and overseas, together with the local community – almost 1,500 young people are involved this year as musical creators and performers – and enriching the cultural life of this lovely and welcoming city.

From the very beginning, our Festival programmes have been integrated and enhanced by themes belonging to the hearts and minds of Setubalense people: this year’s theme of ‘migration’ is highly topical and of global as well as local significance. We have placed a particular emphasis on the interwoven cultures of the Iberian Peninsula: the creative work of our young people and the world-class performances of our visitors in 2017 reflect some of the essential cultural influences and benefits resulting from human migration, not only in recent times but also throughout our history, which help us to define and refine the nature of ourselves individually and of our society collectively.
Music has the almost miraculous power to change lives and to connect people – and music itself has forever been transformed and enriched through migration – here in Setúbal, throughout the Iberian Peninsula and around the World.
This year we decided to celebrate the diversity and range of the guitar, which has existed in many forms and in every culture: perhaps no other type of instrument has been more characteristic of travelling musicians everywhere and of the musical traditions belonging to the Iberian Peninsula itself. Dejan Ivanović, originally from Tuzla (BosniaHerzegovina) and now established as one of Portugal’s most successful classical guitarists, is making his Festival debut as a featured artist in three contrasting concerts. The first of these is in the beautiful church of S. Simão in Azeitao, with the Setúbal Festival Camerata – drawing together some of our finest emerging professional string players – and the outstanding young international conductor Kerem Hasan, also visiting Setúbal for the first time. Our ‘guitar extravaganza’ is something completely different, finding Dejan surrounded by about 60 young guitarists from Setúbal and elsewhere in Portugal! Finally, closing the Festival in the glorious Convent Church of Jesus, he is joined by members of the Gulbenkian Choir and young singers from Setúbal, conducted by Paulo Lourenço. We are delighted that several major groups of musicians have returned to the Festival this year – the Grand Union Orchestra (from London), the Lisbon Sinfonietta and the Gulbenkian Choir – all of whom madehighly successful appearances on previous occasions. A number of outstanding young performers are making their first appearances in the Festival: these include Lia Yeranosyan, winning violinist in the Prémio Jovens Músicos 2016, Portugal’s leading competition for young musicians, and our home-grown rising star of fado, Teresinha Landeiro, native of Azeitao. We are especially privileged to welcome Pílar Del Rio, widow of the author José Saramago, to discuss her Nobel Prize-winning husband’s novel, The Stone Raft, which perfectly reflects and illuminates our vital themes of migration and the Iberian Peninsula. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the initiative and support of the Helen Hamlyn Trust, to the Municipality of Setúbal, the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition and to the many local partners, institutions and individuals, whose efforts make the Festival happen. We offer special thanks to you, the audience, for sharing in the music and giving us our purpose.