Projects

The Roaring Fifteen-Twenties Os Loucos Anos 20 de Quinhentos

Guided musical visits to a repertoire exactly five hundred years old: the collections of polyphonic motets printed in the 1520s, the decade in which music printing gained scale and regularity in Paris, Venice, Antwerp, Nuremberg and Lyon.

Four singers, two recorders and two bowed strings sight-read from full-scale facsimiles, with continuous mediation by Pedro Sousa Silva and commentary on the sacred texts by Pedro Braga Falcão. Visitors come and go freely, ask questions, request repetitions and follow the work as it develops.

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Chyrios das Trevas

A documentary film and book-CD around the Kyries Tenebrarum, one of the earliest works associated with the Portuguese Royal Chapel, dating from the beginning of the sixteenth century. The manuscript that transmits this polyphonic setting belonged to the Infanta Maria of Portugal, Princess of Parma, and is today in the National Library of Naples.

Recording took place in July 2026 at the Church of the Misericórdia in Vila do Conde and in the chapel of the Paço dos Duques de Bragança.

O Temp(l)o Revisitado

A cycle of artistic residencies devoted to Portuguese music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Instead of a stage, an open listening space in which the preparatory work unfolds in real time, with the public moving freely and speaking to the performers.

It took place over three weeks — 21 to 25 May, 9 to 13 and 16 to 20 September 2025 — with guests from literature, painting and theology: Lisa Voigt (Yale University), Sónia Duarte and Pedro Braga Falcão. Supported by Direcção-Geral das Artes, Museus e Monumentos de Portugal, ESMAE / Polytechnic of Porto and CESEM-P.Porto, with the collaboration of Antena 2. Free entrance.

Kyries Tenebrarum

A programme built on the alternation between plainchant — sung by the Schola Gregoriana della Fondazione Turchini — and polyphony, with works by Juan de Urrede, Pedro de Escobar, Juan de Cornago and Francisco de Peñalosa around the Tenebrae ceremony of the Paschal Triduum. Performed in Naples in June 2025 with the support of Direcção-Geral das Artes.

In Memoriam Sonorum

A cycle of twelve presentations of renaissance polyphony drawn from the manuscripts of the Monastery of São Bento da Vitória, held in the monastery itself throughout the first half of 2024.

The sessions worked as creative workshops rather than concerts: eight musicians read from large-format copies of the manuscripts, telling the audience about composers, instruments and historical and liturgical context. Free entrance at any moment.

Towards an Anthology of Portuguese Renaissance Music

A five-month artistic residency, from 14 February to 28 July 2024, devoted to music from Portuguese manuscripts and prints of c. 1500-1700, with particular attention to repertoire rarely performed in modern times. Funded by the European Union through the Creative Europe programme, in collaboration with ESMAE.

The Secret Music of Vicente Lusitano

A project devoted to the complete recovery of Vicente Lusitano's motets, across concerts, recording and outreach. It gave rise to the recording of the Liber Primus Epigramatum (Rome, 1551) in two volumes and to the video series A Música Secreta. Supported by Direcção-Geral das Artes, Caixa Cultura and Fundação GDA.

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O beata Maria: the lost polyphony of Francisco de Santa Maria

A programme centred on a sixteenth-century Portuguese composer whose work remained unrecorded. Recorded in 2022 with funding from Fundação GDA and released by Pan Classics.

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In splendoribus: Portuguese polyphony c. 1550

An exploration of manuscripts from Braga Cathedral and the Monastery of São Bento da Vitória in Porto, with fifteen unpublished works brought to concert and to disc. Supported by Direcção Regional de Cultura do Norte.

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