The famous young Portuguese pianist Vasco Dantas will present the programme which graces his latest CD. Robert Schumann´s Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood); followed by Carl Reinecke´s Transcriptions of Schumann´s Songs; and after the interval, Modest Mussorgsky`s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Vasco Dantas was born in Porto in 1992, and graduated from the Royal College of Music in London with a First Class Distinction. He has won already more than fifty prizes in competitions in Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. In 2017, he accompanied the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and in 2020 performed for the first time at the Carnegie Hall in New York. He has performed with many Portuguese orchestras, including the Gulbenkian. For further information and for tickets, please contact Lynne on lynne.algarvehistory@gmail.com

On Tuesday 23 November, in Lagoa Library at 18:00 and on Friday 26 November at 11:00 in Tavira Library, Peter Booker will speak about the Restoration of 1640, and the Restoration War. Peter writes: After sixty years of rule by the Kings of Spain, the Portuguese decided that enough was enough, and they wanted their independence back. What in particular drove them to this change of heart, and why was 1640 such a propitious year? Peter will cover the miscalculations made by Spain and the current international situation which smiled on Portuguese ambition. He will cover the 28 years of struggle on the part of Portugal to break free from Spain, and the crucial parts played by Catalonia, France, the Netherlands and especially by England, and last, but not least, the marriage of the Portuguese princess, D Catarina de Bragança to England´s Lothario, the recently restored Charles II, and the effect this marriage had on Tavira in the Algarve. And the bank holiday of 1 December. For further information, please contact Lynne on lynne.algarvehistory@gmail.com