Event: Portugal - Lisbon

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

When:	Daily
Where:	Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Portugal's most important cultural organisation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in São Sebastião has a choir and orchestra which perform an annual programme of concerts, supplemented by visiting international orchestras. Jazz concerts take place during the summer.

Based in Lisbon, visitors can wander round its gardens, visit the Gulbenkian Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, or attend a concert by the internationally renowned Gulbenkian ballet.

The Gulbenkian Museum has an eclectic permanent collection of objects from Ancient Egypt, Greece, the Roman Empire and Mesopotamia, Eastern Islamic, Armenian and Far Eastern art, as well as European painting, sculpture and decorative arts from the 11th to the mid-20th century.

The Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1983 and comprises work collected by the foundation since the 1950s. It includes works by the most representative 20th-century Portuguese artists as well as several international ones.

The choir and orchestra were founded in the 1960s and have evolved with each artistic director. Lawrence Foster the orchestra and Michel Corboz the choir.

The organisation was founded by Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), a philanthropist, art collector and benefactor of the arts.