Mission

The MiniSeixas Festival brings together young talents around the work of composer José António Carlos Seixas, promoting Portuguese musical heritage in historical and emblematic venues of his time. Inspired by the spirit of the composer-pedagogue whose name it bears, the festival’s mission is to preserve, celebrate, and disseminate Seixas’s work among younger generations. This great Portuguese composer was also a renowned music teacher among Lisbon’s aristocracy in the early 18th century, and many of his sonatas and minuets have a distinctly pedagogical character, having been composed with his students in mind.

The MiniSeixas draws inspiration from the spirit of the composer-pedagogue to pursue two main objectives:

1. To bring together harpsichord, organ, and piano students from various art schools across the country through annual activities centred on the work of Carlos Seixas: visits to original manuscripts, encounters with historical instruments of the period, and moments of exchange and community building. In this way, the festival seeks to foster curiosity and enthusiasm among young musicians for Seixas’s music and for Portuguese instrumental and musical heritage.

2. To produce an audiovisual record of Carlos Seixas’s keyboard works, interpreted, revived, and kept alive by young students of keyboard instruments.

Concurso

The selection process

A competition format is proposed to address logistical limitations specific to the project, but also as a way to rank interested participants: the aim is to select the works and young performers best prepared for recording, focusing primarily on the quality of the final product rather than the overall technical or artistic ability of each contestant (as is the case in competitions that involve the performance of a broader repertoire).
The works recorded in each edition cannot be recorded again on the same instrument in future editions.

(see the list of pieces here)

Who can participate

This competition is open to children and teenagers, aged 9 to 17, who are students (in official or non-official education) of harpsichord, organ, and piano.

2023 Edition of the Carlos Seixas Keyboard Music Competition

This edition was an experimental "Beta" edition carried out in collaboration with the Orfeão de Leiria and was limited to its internal students and external students of the Orfeão's teachers.

Winners 23'

Cravo

O Júri deliberou não atribuir prémios nesta categoria

Órgão

Piano

1/1

2024 Edition of the Carlos Seixas Keyboard Music Competition

The first national edition of the MiniSeixas Keyboard Festival took place in the city of Coimbra, in partnership with the University of Coimbra. All information for this edition of the competition can be found at Regulamento.

Selected 24'

Cravo

Julia Francisco - EAMCN Lisboa

Samuel Silva - CML Loulé

Bianca Oliveira - EAMCN Lisboa

Órgão

Isabel Azenha - EMST Coimbra

Miguel Novo - OLCA Leiria

Rafaela Silva - OLCA Leiria

Piano

Maria Oliveira - OLCA Leiria

Sofia Sá e Silva - AMPB Paços Brandão

Clara Silva - CMB Barcelos

jury coordination

Internal Jury

Internal Jury

Harpsichord

Organ

Piano

Congratulations and our heartfelt thanks to all the nearly 100 participants for making this project a reality!!!
Whether selected or not, you are all winners. The recordings we received were of high quality and a great showcase of the excellent work being done from north to south of the country in the harpsichord, organ, and piano classes.