Dear friend,

Have you ever participated in an ESTA International conference?

The Portuguese Branch of the European String Teachers Association would like to invite you to participate in the PORTO 2020 Online – ESTA International Conference. With our first online version of the conference you can take advantage of its very reasonable inscription fee, exciting content about teaching, playing and studying string instruments, with great online conditions to be able to participate live with the presenters and catch up later on missed sessions.

It was to be a live conference in April but destiny wanted to test our strength and determi- nation with this new adventure we have had to face. We have tested new mediums, met online, discussed the new world and discovered a new virtual meeting space. Far from giving up, we have been learning and preparing, and will be able to hold Porto 2020 online. We aim to offer as much of the original conference content as possible, to meet and share knowledge and experience about our beloved activity of music and teaching.

The Porto 2020 conference will take place online at the end of October. It will be on the weekend mornings of 31 October/1 November and 7/8 November. We feel that we cannot occupy the participants too long behind the screen and therefore we pro- pose parallel sessions for only part of the day.
All sessions will be recorded and sessions that by option have not been viewed in synchronous time can be viewed at another time up to 30 days later.

We are working on a very nice plan with several additional rooms including network rooms, coffee breaks, meeting rooms and exhibitors rooms. Additional activities might also be scheduled during the week if the weekends get too busy.
The basic plan is that you connect with us from your home in a format like a zoom meeting where you can participate as an active listener and interact to ask questions, share your experiences or gain information. Sessions will be like a webinar or a meeting or a combination of both. For example, a lecture can be broadcast like a webinar and at the end we will open the room and participants can ask the presenters questions. We will also have workshops and masterclasses as well as some other ideas that we hope you will enjoy.


For a better idea of what to expect, you can visit our YouTube channel to see the teaser videos made by some of our presenters and watch the “Meet the speakers” sessions that were recorded live.

We hope to see you there,

Warmest regards,

The Organising Commitee

Jorge Alves, Clarissa Foletto, Emília Alves, Hazel Veitch, Mariana Morais, Ana Alves and Dora Queiróz