Celebrating its 17th anniversary (2007-2024), the Orquestra Portuguesa de Guitarras e Bandolins (OPGB) has played more than a hundred concerts since then not only in Portugal but in Spain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany as well. In Portugal its concert season tried to span all the territory so far, standing out the sold-out concerts in Lisbon and Oporto.
Formed by 20 musicians and several other support musicians, the principal conductor is Helder Magalhães and the Artistic director is António de Sousa Vieira. Some of well-known Portuguese and European composers have written and dedicated the OPGB some of their new works. Well known soloists such as Andrea de Vitis, Dejan Ivanovic, Sofia Escobar, Dora Rodrigues, Horácio Ferreira, and well-known conductors such as Pedro Chamorro, Juan Carlos Muñoz, Fernando Bustamante and Yasunobu Inoue have collaborated with the OPGB.
The orchestra is part of the Associação Cultural de Plectro, hosted since 2015 in Gondomar (Portugal), and has also got the support from the Direção Regional de Cultura do Norte (DRCN), Direção Geral das Artes (DGArtes), Ministério da Cultura and UNESCO.
