Workshops
New dates available in 2021 - to be announced soon.
If you're interested in Online Piano Lessons with Maria João Pires or Miloš Popović, please click here
Overview
We welcome musicians from around the world to Belgais for a week of intense work supervised by Maria João Pires, Miloš Popović and, where appropriate, other speakers (lecturers, academics or therapists, yoga teacher) who have elaborated a reflection on their own course.
Our workshops are a way of performing an in-depth musical work but, also, thanks to the particular and preserved setting offered by Belgais, to invite a meditation on the relationship that each individual has with his/her habits, culture, technique and expectations.
Such an approach, respectful to the needs of each individual's rhythms, is inseparable from a reflection, both fruitful and necessary for the role of the today's artist. From this point of view, the Belgais "workshops" encourage interactions between participants, collective work sessions, exchanges during meals taken together, trying to offer an alternative to traditional "masterclasses".
The workshops are designed above all as places of transmission. In a setting that encourages respect for the needs and rhythms of everyone, experienced musicians who have reflected on their own journey share their artistic vision with young artists in training.
The purpose is not only to perpetuate techniques and know-how, to sharpen sensitivities, but also to forge a personal relationship with music, which is inseparable from the role of the artist today. Paradoxically, young musicians need to find a way to take themselves out of context of the contemporary world with all of its assumptions whilst also remaining "in sync" with it.
Participation is accessible to pianists who are over 18 and fulfil application standards, and also to external listeners. Please check our price list for further details.
Tutors
Maria João Pires
Born in 1944 in Lisbon, Maria João Pires gave her first public performance at the age of 4 and began her studies of music and piano with Campos Coelho and Francine Benoît, continuing later in Germany, with Rosl Schmid and Karl Engel. In addition to her concerts, she has made recordings for Erato for fifteen years and Deutsche Grammophon for twenty years.
Since the 1970s, she has devoted herself to reflecting the influence of art in life, community and education, trying to discover new ways of establishing this way of thinking in society. She has searched for new ways which, respecting the development of individuals and cultures, encourage the sharing of ideas.
In 1999, she created the Belgais Centre for the Study of the Arts in Portugal. Maria João Pires regularly offers interdisciplinary workshops for professional musicians and music lovers. In the Belgais concert hall concerts and recordings regularly take place. In future these will be shared with the international digital community (pay and non-pay).
In 2012, in Belgium, she initiated two complementary projects; the Partitura Choirs, a project which creates and develops choirs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds as in Belgium the „Hesperos Choir, and the Partitura Workshops. All of the Partitura projects have the aim to create an altruistic dynamic between artists of different generations by proposing an alternative in a world too often focused on competitiveness. This philosophy is being spread worldwide at Partitura projects and workshops.
Miloš Popović
Born in Belgrade in 1985, Miloš began learning the piano at the age of 10 with Siniša Radojčić and from his first lesson, he knew it was to become his life companion, as well as his means of expression. He went on to study with Biljana Gorunović in Novi Sad and later on, after moving to Belgium, alongside Yevgeny Moguilevsky and Abdel Rahman El Bacha.
Next to his concert activity, Miloš discovered at an early age his passion about transmission and teaching. That lead him to do a master degree in piano pedagogy where he deepened his research about the use of the body as the main instrument of the pianist.
Since 2014, he has worked closely with Maria-João Pires in numerous occasions. They shared the stage on concerts across Europe, as well as collaborated in dozen of workshops in which, next to the common pianistic approach, the objective is also about questioning the artist’s place and responsibility in society – be it aesthetic, ethical, social or pedagogical.
Miloš also devotes time to developing children's choirs in underprivileged areas with the aim of promoting mutual respect through learning music and developing stability and inner strength, so often buried inside or oppressed by modern society.
Miloš has made two recordings for ‘Fuga Libera’; the first devoted to piano works by Robert Schumann, and the second with violinist Lorenzo Gatto – featuring compositions by Enescu, Martinu and Mokranjac.
Price List
Participant: €2,500 *
Includes:
1 week workshop
Full lodging
Full board (quality organic / vegetarian kitchen)
Transfer Castelo Branco – Belgais
External Listener: €1,250
Includes:
Full access (as listener) to the entire workshop
Full lodging
Full board (quality organic / vegetarian kitchen)
Transfer Castelo Branco – Belgais
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* Limited number of Partial Scholarships are available for participants only. Please contact us for more info
