A one-of-a-kind cosmos

“An extraordinary experience”… is how Feuilleton Frankfurt described a performance of the symphonic concert Amazônia in September 2024, presented at the Alte Oper Frankfurt under the musical direction of Simone Menezes and featuring photographs by the world-renowned late photographer Sebastião Salgado. The programme celebrates the unique natural cosmos of the Amazon in all its facets, with compositions by Heitor Villa-Lobos and Philip Glass which, like Salgado’s photographs, are directly inspired by this diverse, wild, and tragically endangered rainforest region. Together with the Dresden Philharmonic, the Italian-Brazilian conductor Simone Menezes will appear in June at the Dresden Music Festival and at Gulbenkian Música.

5 June 2026, Dresdner Musikfestspiele / 11 & 12 June 2026, Gulbenkian Música, Lissabon
AMAZÔNIA – orchestral concert with photos by Sebastião Salgado
Dresden Philharmonic / Camile Provenzale, soprano / Simone Menezes, conductor
H. Villa-Lobos: Excerpts from Bachianas Brasileiras / P. Glass:  Águas da Amazônia – Metamorphosis / H. Villa-Lobos: Floresta do Amazonas (arr. Simone Menezes)