Founded in 2021, the Musical-Mente Concert Series is a partnership between the Teatro Nacional São João and DSCH – Associação Musical, curated by Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro.
It is a concert series introduced by lectures, called “preludes,” drawn from other fields of thought. Musical-Mente takes place as part of the Teatro Nacional São João season in Porto, with concerts held at the Mosteiro de São Bento da Vitória and the Teatro Nacional São João.
The 1st Musical-Mente Cycle explored the intersection between music and neuroscience, featuring chamber music concerts accompanied by scientific “preludes” on the relationship between music and the brain. Between November 2021 and June 2022, four outstanding string quartets—Michelangelo, Hermès, Cosmos, and Gropius—made their Portuguese debuts, performing landmark works by major composers. The preludes were presented by four internationally renowned guests and researchers—Barbara Tillmann, Nuno Sousa, Maria Majno, and Stefan Kölsch—who addressed themes related to the intimate (physiological and therapeutic) relationship between music (sound and noise) and the brain.
The exploration of music and science was expanded in the 2nd Musical-Mente Cycle, extending to Physics with a lecture by Vítor Cardoso, Chemistry with João Paulo André, Mathematics with Jorge Buescu, and returning to Neuroscience with a lecture by the American composer Bruce Adolphe, which included the world premiere of his sextet “Dreaming and Thinking.”
The concerts of the 3rd Musical-Mente Cycle, in 2023/2024, presented a monographic triptych inspired by the concept(s) of freedom, in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of April 25th. The concerts were preceded by political lectures/preludes, inviting reflection on the connections between art and politics. From November 2023 to March 2024, the cycle highlighted the creative genius of three composers in the context of the political regimes of their time: the absolute freedom of Ludwig van Beethoven inspired by the Enlightenment, the repressed freedom of Dmitri Shostakovich under Soviet rule, and the exiled freedom of Erich Wolfgang Korngold fleeing Nazism. The political preludes were delivered by Rui Moreira, Irene Flunser Pimentel, and Paulo Rangel.
The 4th edition of the Musical-Mente Cycle was dedicated to the intimate relationship between music and poetry, featuring three monographic concerts devoted to Antonio Vivaldi, Franz Liszt, and Astor Piazzolla. Each concert was preceded by a poetic prelude, highlighting the centrality of the word and literary imagination in the genesis of these works. The cycle opened with Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, one of the earliest and most emblematic examples of programmatic music, whose score includes four sonnets that evoke, through sound and words, the passage of time. Violinist Jack Liebeck and the Juventus Ensemble guided the audience through the sensory atmospheres of each season, emphasizing the structural and expressive closeness between verse and music.
The cycle continued with an exploration of the poetic affinities of Piazzolla’s Nuevo Tango, deeply shaped by his dialogue with poets such as Jorge Luis Borges and Horacio Ferrer. In March, Uruguayan singer Ana Karina Rossi, a muse of Ferrer, performed with a quintet led by bandoneonist Héctor del Curto, a collaborator of Piazzolla himself and of historic figures such as Osvaldo Pugliese.
In May 2025, Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro concluded the cycle with a recital dedicated to Franz Liszt, exploring some of his most remarkable piano works inspired by literature, from Dante Alighieri to Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Francesco Petrarca. A highlight was the Sonata Dante (Sonata quasi una Fantasia – Après une lecture du Dante), a powerful musical translation of the Divina Commedia and Victor Hugo’s eponymous poem, representing the ultimate synthesis of the Romantic ideal of merging music and poetry.
© DSCH – Associação Musical 2025