General Information
Porto’s Superior School of Music and Performing Arts (ESMAE), belonging to the Porto’s Polytechnic Institute (IPP) emerged (1994), after the extinction of the Superior School of Music, with intention to widen its offer of graduation courses to other artistic areas beyond music. Nowadays, ESMAE encloses two departments: Music department, where it offers degrees in the most various areas, such as instrument, singing, composition, early music, jazz, production and music technologies; Theatre department, that is responsible for the education in branches such as: acting, stage management, scenography, costumes design, light and sound design. ESMAE gives a particular importance to the performances of its pupils, since this is an essential complement to achieve their courses objectives. These performances have as principal aim the promotion of a strong and permanent contact between the young artists and its future public. In this context, ESMAE has a Concert Café and the Theatre Helena Sá Costa, which are the stages of a great part of the students’ performances. Furthermore, ESMAE has developed many partnerships which allow students to show their work off campus through concerts and performances in Casa da Música, Serralves, Coliseu do Porto, among others. ESMAE has, currently, nearly 700 students and 140 teachers.ESMAE organizes several prestigious performance events such as HARMOS festival (international chamber music festival) and SET (Week of Theatre Schools); has got more than 100 cooperation agreements with international institutions and has been taking part in European projects since 2003 such as Variazioni project (EC e-content plus), E-CLAP (ICT-PSP), several ERASMUS Intensive Programs (SACS, IICS, Phoenix, La follia), EUROCLASSICAL (Culture 07-13), NEU/NOW (Culture 07-13) and Meeting Place (ERASMUS+ KA2-Strategic partnership).
ESMAE produces more than 250 musical events per season.
