The festival, directed by Daniel Oliveira, kicks off on May 18 with a half-hour interactive concert for children aged between 6 and 12 at the Chapel of St Helena, in Santa Cruz, by Débora Severiano, on recorder, and Ana Almeida, from Teia-Associação Cultural.

The event “invites children and parents to listen to some of the most outstanding themes of Baroque and Renaissance music with recorder and percussion in one of the 18th-century chapels”.

The programme continues on 25 May at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição in Ponte do Rol, with the candlelit concert “Medieval Music in Praise of Santa Maria”.

The Gaudium Vocis group aims to recreate the musical atmosphere of the courts, churches, and precessions of the 13th,14th, and 15th centuries in the Iberian Peninsula.

This is a 50-minute commented concert, showing the audience instruments such as the “organetto” (medieval organ) and Iberian manuscripts from the 14th and 16th centuries.

On June 16, the Ensemble Atena is the protagonist of the concert “Portuguese Music and Italian Influence: from sonata to Folia”, dedicated to Portuguese music from the 18th century, at the Church of São Domingos de Carmões.

Works by Portuguese composers such as Francisco Xavier Batista, Pedro Lopes Nogueira, José Torres, and Carlos Seixas will be performed, as well as by Italians Domenico Scarlatti and Giuseppe Tartini to showcase the Italian influence in Portugal during the Baroque period.

Students from the Espaço Dança Academy (ILU Association) will also present unexpected five-minute moments, combining dance with Baroque music and exploring the spontaneity of Baroque dance.


Students and teachers from the Luís António Maldonado Rodrigues Conservatory of Music in Torres Vedras will present “An Evening of Baroque Opera: The Fairy Queen by Henry Purcell”, directed by conductor Pedro Rollin Rodrigues, on June 26 at the Church of Santiago in the city of Torres Vedras.

This is a school project for choir and orchestra that has been running throughout this school year.

“The Fairy Queen” is a semi-opera whose libretto is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, first performed in 1692.

The music and choreography show will include an opera commentary at the beginning of the concert.

The festival closes on June 29 with the peace concert “In Gloria by Vivaldi”, by the Torres Vedras Vocal Camerata and the Baroque group Alma Veteras, at the Church of Santa Maria Madalena in Turcifal.

The concert with choir and orchestra will begin with a work by Bach, followed by Vilvadi’s “Gloria” and ends with an invitation to the Vocal Camerata audience to sing together the piece “Dona Nobis Pacem” attributed to Mozart.

With the festival, the municipality aims to promote music, local music and dance groups, and historical heritage, as well as to decentralise culture by bringing it to all audiences.