Porto, Portugal, April 15, 2025 (Lusa) - Casa da Música, in Portugal's northern city of Porto, is marking the 20th anniversary of its official opening on Tuesday, with free concerts throughout the city, from Bolhão to the University Rectory, from metro stations to Sao João Hospital. According to the programme, the ‘Flash Concerts’ will kick off at 10am, in the Casa da Música ticket office atrium, with a string quartet that will later, at 11.30am, play for patients in the paediatric ward of the Hospital de São João and, an hour later, for hospital staff. At the Bolhão Market, a brass quartet will play at midday, 12.25pm and 12.50pm. At Trindade metro station, a vocal quartet will perform at 5pm, 5.25pm and 5.45pm, while at Casa da Música station the band COMBi will play at 6pm. At 6.30pm, the digital music project Digitópia will perform at the Rectory of the University of Porto. At Casa da Música, at at 10am, the sessions "Do Gesto se Faz Som - A Criar Som pela Casa Fora" will begin, today dedicated in particular to children between the ages of 6 and 8. The initiative includes "a series of activities" that explore the "facilities and different equipment" of the Casa da Música, appealing to the "fantasy and creativity" of the participants. In the evening, at 9pm, the Casa da Música Baroque Orchestra, under the direction of Laurence Cummings, will perform Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's ‘Stabat Mater’, taking into account Johann Sebastian Bach's arrangement, in a programme that also includes Carlos Seixas' Symphony for Strings in B flat major and Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Oboes in D minor RV535. Casa da Música is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a month full of activities that include, among others, performances by the Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos with Ana Lua Caiano, and the Brazilian band Francisco, el Hombre, on a farewell tour with their latest album, ‘Hasta el final’, on the 19th; Greek soprano, actress and visual artist Aphrodite Patoulidou, with British pianist Julius Drake, on the 24th; and the Casa da Música Symphony Orchestra, in the 4th Beethoven Symphony. Beethoven's 4th Symphony, conducted by Andreas Spering, on the 27th. The month will culminate in a special edition of Clubbing with free entry on the 30th, which will open with Carla Prata and Cíntia and continue until 4am the following morning with names such as Ece Canli, Desengaiola, Solar Corona Elektrische Maschine, Akila, Conferência Inferno, Daniel Wang and Gusta-vo, among others. Construction of the Casa da Música, designed by architect Rem Koolhaas, began in 1999 and the official opening took place on 15 April 2005. Over the course of 20 years, Casa da Música has staged more than 6,000 concerts, welcomed 3.8 million spectators and participants and commissioned more than 300 musical works. In these two decades, Casa da Música has developed more than 26,000 activities, worked with 1,000 community groups and organised 35,000 guided tours for a total of 570,000 visitors. TDI/AYLS // AYLS Lusa