The Festival de Música dos Capuchos is recognized as one of Portugal’s leading cultural events. It takes its name from the Convento dos Capuchos, built in 1558 and located within the Protected Landscape of the Fossil Cliff of the Costa de Caparica, in the municipality of Almada, where most of the festival’s concerts are held.
The Festival de Música dos Capuchos was founded in 1980 by José Adelino Tacanho and António Wagner Diniz. After a two-decade hiatus, it was revived in 2021 under the artistic direction of pianist Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro, with the support of the Câmara Municipal de Almada and organized by DSCH – Associação Musical.
Since then, the Festival has welcomed artists of world-class excellence, including Alfred Brendel, Stephen Kovacevich, Pierre Hantaï, Sergei Nakariakov, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Benjamin Schmid, Alexander Kantorow, Anna Tsybuleva, Viviane Hagner, Esther Hoppe, Christian Poltéra, Adrian Brendel, Pascal Moraguès, Mario Hossen, Diana Tishchenko, Marcelo Nisinman, Héctor del Curto, Konstantin Lifschitz, Anna Samuil, Hopkinson Smith, among many others; orchestras and ensembles such as the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Budapest, I Solisti Veneti, Consuelo Orchestra of Paris, the Swedish chamber orchestra Musica Vitae, the St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra, the Hermès Quartet of Paris, DSCH – Schostakovich Ensemble, Concerto Atlântico, Officium Ensemble, Sete Lágrimas, and 100 Caminhos; as well as leading Portuguese musicians including António Victorino d’Almeida, António Wagner Diniz, João Barradas, Nuno Vieira de Almeida, David Santos, Sofia Ribeiro, Rui Lopes, Susana Gaspar, Pedro Caldeira Cabral, and Pedro Neves, among many others.
The programmatic concept of the Festival de Música dos Capuchos is inspired by the Convento dos Capuchos itself—“5 centuries of History and Music”—spanning from the Renaissance, the period of the convent’s founding, to contemporary music.
With the revival of the Festival de Música dos Capuchos in 2021, the Conversas dos Capuchos series was inaugurated, dedicated to literature and curated and moderated by Carlos Vaz Marques. The series has already welcomed guests such as António Mega Ferreira, Helena Roseta, António Feijó, Pedro Mexia, Jorge Vaz de Carvalho, Joana Matos Frias, Fernando Pinto do Amaral, Guilherme de Oliveira Martins, Nuno Júdice, Hélia Correia, Álvaro Laborinho Lúcio, among others. In 2021, the series focused on Dante Alighieri, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Charles Baudelaire; in 2022, it highlighted Agustina Bessa-Luís, Marcel Proust, and Luís Vaz de Camões; and in 2023, it honored Mário Cesariny de Vasconcelos, Natália Correia, and Eugénio de Andrade.
In 2023, the Festival de Música dos Capuchos inaugurated its educational component with the launch of the Masterclasses dos Capuchos, led by professors from the conservatories of Paris, Salzburg, and Lucerne. Also in 2023, a series of pre-concert talks, called Prelúdios dos Capuchos, was presented for the first time, moderated by João Almeida. Additionally, the festival introduced ecological and heritage awareness activities, including a cultural visit to the historic heritage of the Convento dos Capuchos and a guided walk around the convent, located within the Protected Landscape of the Fossil Cliff of the Costa da Caparica, which features significant natural values that deserve recognition and preservation.
The Festival dos Capuchos thus establishes itself as an event of musical excellence and community engagement, open to all audiences, where music—the universal language par excellence—serves as a space for encounter, listening, and dialogue, capable of uniting generations, sensibilities, and cultures.
© DSCH – Associação Musical 2025