The musical project ‘Zéthoven – Plant a Musician’, which began to think about children, but which really took to the parents, presents itself on Saturday at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, with the concert ‘Renascer’.
The concert “Renascer”, by the composer Luís Cipriano, will be presented at the concert “This is PARTIS [Artistic Practices for Social Inclusion]” by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. to represent the rebirth of the mountain [of Gardunha] and the return to normal life “after the fires of the summer of 2017.
The work was presented for the first time in April 2018 in Fundão’s Mother Church and on stage in the Gulbenkian, said the composer, who will be the same people, that is, “the Mixed Choir of Beira Interior and the Children’s Choir of Beira Interior, is composed of 40 and such children, who belong to the project, accompanied by five percussionists, two of whom play marimba and vibraphone and the other three “utensils typical of the Serra da Gardunha: olive ladders, baskets of veiga, metal trusses, count put the pots to the fireplace to bake “.
The mixed choir, “an amateur choir” made up of adults, where only “three people can read music”, also includes “ten children from the project”.
“We do not care about the age of the people, but what they produce.” If a 12-year-old child who was on the project produces as much as a young man of 18 or 19 who is in the choir, he has the same right to be in that choir “said Luís Cipriano.
The children who pass through Zéthoven are “from the various rural areas of Beira Interior” and “many of them were the first time they had a chance to make a concert”.
“There is something curious and not less important,” said the president of the Cultural Association of Beira Interior. “Many of the families of these children were the first time they went to a concert.”
The association, which is based in Covilhã, in the district of Castelo Branco, and has artistic direction by Luís Cipriano, specifies that this work “was composed in its eight movements for percussion and voices, having a sharp tímbrico contrast with a Mixed Choir, a Children’s Choir and a Choir that perpetuates the tradition of the Encouragement of Souls “.
The initial idea of Luís Cipriano was “only the children”, but “this surpasses” what he had anticipated.
“With the passage of time, we realize that the children’s will, from a cultural point of view, was not always respected by parents. Contemporary society is so fragile that the good student is the one who has 5 math and 5 to Portuguese, which has 5 music and physical education is likely to be a cool guy and will not be more than that, “he lamented.
At one point, the project managers realized that they had to “educate their parents.”
“Today we have the project often directed at the parents in an attempt to make them aware of what their children are capable of and the talents their children have. We have to adapt because we feel the need to have somehow given more culture to some parents so that they themselves were not hindering the cultural evolution of their children, “he said.
‘Zéthoven – Plant a Musician’ was one of the 16 projects of social intervention for art that were supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the second edition (2016-2018) of the PARTIS initiative, which allowed ‘Zéthoven’ to reach more children.
Support ended in December last year, but the project “continues through partnerships with local authorities.”
Although “getting funding at the local level is not very difficult, getting funding is extremely difficult.”
To balance the bills, the Beira Interior Mixed Choir, which “makes a lot of concerts, is paid”. “And he often makes concerts so that these children can get the project back in their day-to-day life, so the project will continue, of course,” said the composer.
Giving up was never a hypothesis, even because Luís Cipriano is not a “quiet person”.
The percussion will be the responsibility of Rodrigo Azevedo, André Nabais, Francisco Cipriano, Pedro Tavares, and António Machado, being the concert directed by the own composer.
The ‘This is PARTIS’, with free admission, runs from Friday to Sunday at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, to show “the result of work developed with vulnerable people and in situations of exclusion.”
The full schedule can be found on the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation website.
