Solo performance of the first movement of S. Golovko’s Colombian Concerto for marimba, by Santiago Roldão (marimba), accompanied on piano by Professor Valeriu Stanciu, lecturer at the Arts School of the Calouste Gulbenkian Conservatory of Music in Aveiro.
Santiago Roldão completed the Percussion Course at the Arts School of the Calouste Gulbenkian Music Conservatory in Aveiro, where he studied with Professors Pedro Fernandes and Pedro Oliveira. Throughout his training, he stood out for his musical maturity and interpretative versatility, participating in various projects and concerts, both solo and in groups.
He was a final-year student in the 2024/2025 academic year in Professor Pedro Oliveira’s percussion class and distinguished himself as one of the winners of the 2025 Internal Competition.
He recently performed this same work with the Orquestra Filarmonia das Beiras at the Opening Concert of the Academic Year of the Arts School of the Calouste Gulbenkian Music Conservatory in Aveiro, held last September at the Teatro Aveirense, as part of the collaboration agreement between the Orquestra Filarmonia das Beiras and the Municipality of Aveiro.
Five musicians, a body of sound made of clay. In this creation by the WETUMTUM company, ceramics are more than just material – they are instruments, scenery and inspiration. In a travelling show where percussion takes on new textures, ceramic pieces are transformed into musical objects, revealing unexpected sounds and images that echo the gesture of touch and the sonorous texture of ceramics. Between fragility and strength, rhythm and silence, a sensory landscape is built that invites the public to listen with their eyes and see with their ears. A celebration of tactile listening and imperfect beauty, made of earth, breath and vibration.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
‘Ecos de Grés’ is born out of a deep listening to space and matter. Its sound identity is built on the relationship between body, instrument and architecture, exploring the resonance of ceramics, the acoustics of space and the fusion between tradition and contemporaneity. The narrative that the work formally suggests is that of a ritual where creation is remembered and contemplated. Sound here is not just a medium, but also memory and raw material. The earthenware flutes become extensions of the breath and the earth, in a continuity between the human gesture and the material heritage of ceramics. The other ceramic objects, which take on a new life here, reveal unexpected timbres, sometimes raw and percussive, sometimes melodic and ethereal, echoing the hands that once shaped them.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
A woman passes through time. She comes from dust. Her hands create what necessity demands. From the pitcher to the clay pig against evil, from profane animals to sacred beings, from decoration to industry. Now she has a name. Her hands create what freedom awakens and dreams unleash.
Two women receive two inheritances. Their stories are heard from their hands. ‘A crack, even when covered, reappears when it fires.’
A lonely man contemplates his art and realises that he is returning to where he started. From dust to creation and back to dust.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
Live Act in a workshow format, provoking an experience where the audience is invited to interact actively, taking on the role of creator and interpreter at certain moments. This hybrid format values the unfinished, favouring an audience experience that touches places previously exclusive to the artist. In a workshow, contemplation mixes with participation, creating a fluid space between those who observe and those who act, between the experimental and spontaneous with the prepared performance.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
In this staged tour/performance, the exhibition will not just be a collection of objects to be observed. Each piece, each ceramic fragment, strategically scattered throughout the gallery, assumes a crucial role. Throughout the visit, participants will be guided through an engaging narrative, punctuated by moments of interaction and discovery. At each step, different ceramic elements – a delicate arm, a sturdy leg, a sinuous body, an expressive head – will gradually be revealed and combined. The culmination of this artistic journey is the gradual and complete formation of a puppet. As the performance unfolds, the objects, previously scattered and seemingly disconnected, will come together to form an articulated figure, full of symbolism and history. This puppet, born from the exhibition itself, will represent the soul of ceramics, its ability to transform itself and tell stories.
This staged tour is more than just contemplation; it’s a celebration of creativity, interactivity and art’s ability to surprise us.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
Live audiovisual performance based on observing and listening to the ceramic gesture. Sounds and images collected in collaboration with local artisans are given new life in a performative moment that combines electronic music, ceramic objects, and experimental video. The performance explores the sound of clay as a living, transforming material and evokes the artistic and sensory labour of ceramics in a contemporary and immersive register.
The session on 22nd November, at 3:30 p.m. includes a talk with the artists.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
On a day dedicated to the magic of art, the 17th Aveiro International Biennale of Ceramic Art welcomes the talented young guitarist Beatriz Pinto, winner of several international awards, with performances in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and the USA, and a semi-finalist on Portugal’s Got Talent. A student at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar in Germany, under the guidance of Ricardo Gállen, Beatriz brings to Aveiro a programme that spans different eras and styles, from the Renaissance to the present day.
With works by notable composers and interpretations full of sensitivity, the concert promises an unforgettable musical experience that invites the audience to immerse themselves in the sonic and emotional richness of classical guitar music. Come and discover the virtuosity and passion of one of Portugal’s promising young classical guitarists.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
What if music were not only heard by us, but also felt by matter?
What if ceramics—molded, fired, transformed—held within themselves not only the artist’s gesture, but also the memory of sound?
In this harp concert, an encounter between vibration and silence is proposed, between the body that listens and the object that remains. The boundary between the inanimate and the living is questioned. Because if art touches us, who can guarantee that it does not feel itself?
“Sensitive Matter” is a sound experience where each note is offered as a question: can music alter the soul of clay? And is there, after all, a soul in the things that art has already touched?
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Biennale passport
At a crossroads between clay and flesh, Terracorpus is a contemporary dance show that uses the human body as a tool, mould and material for creation. Through gesture, breathing and weight, the performers idealise and sculpt a ceramic piece with their own bodies – a ritual of presence where the ephemerality of movement meets the permanence of form. From the depths of the imagination springs the desire to touch the earth and let oneself be touched by it. Inspiration springs from the ancestral relationship between humans and clay – this malleable, organic material that holds impressions, memories and marks. During the performance, the body becomes an extension of the desire to mould and be moulded, in a dance that is also labour, sweat, silence and friction. In Terracorpus, the stage is transformed into a studio and altar, where we witness the birth of a living sculpture made of shared gestures. Between the lightness of creation and the weight of matter, the fragility of what we are is danced – impermanent, but capable of leaving form in the world.
Registration fee | 2,00€ or Bienal passport
To close the International Biennlale of Artistic Ceramics, the Municipality of Aveiro invites the Beiras Orchestra to perform in concert at the Aveiro Congress Centre Auditorium.
This will be a festive concert, where you can listen to masterpieces from the classical and romantic periods. A celebration of the universality of art, as well as its transversality in various areas of society.
As there is no ceramics without fire, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Overture to Prometheus pays homage to the mythological figure who stole fire from the Gods of Olympus, offering it to humanity and fostering the development of civilisation. Felix Mendelssohn’s The Beautiful Melusine celebrates a muse of water, another component without which the art of ceramics would not exist. Finally, since clay comes from the earth, and the earth exists in space, the concert ends with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s grandiose Symphony No. 41, also known as Jupiter.
The orchestra and audience will be guided on this journey through the elements by the hands and mediation of the Principal Conductor of the Orquestra das Beiras, Jan Wierzba.
Program
L.V. Beethoven – Overture of “ The Creatures of Prometheus”
F. Mendelssohn – Overture of “The beautiful Melusine”
A. Mozart – Symphony No. 41 KV 551 in C Major Jupiter
Orquestra das Beiras
Jan Wierzba, Conductor
Time: 50mins.
