SEMIBREVE is entering its second decade this year. Happening 27 – 30 October 2022 and spawned in Braga, Portugal’s Silicon Valley of the XXI century, this electronic music and digital art festival has been committed to supporting the community of artists and students in Braga and the north of the country. What first was a one-venue 8 acts-only festival slowly expanded to the entire city, with more days and more shows’ shared with us the festival’s curators. The festival was born out of the passion for experimental electronic music of a group of four friends, who conceived the happening with an aim to energise their locality’s contemporary art scene, specifically on the outskirts of Portugal’s bigger cities, where they felt an urgency to share a new kind of sound and music programming bringing together art and technology, bridging the gap between audience and artists.

The festival’s unique character is granted by the venues where the events are taking place. SEMIBREVE’s site-specificity has been well-known for its breathtaking UNESCO heritage locations that the old roman city of Braga is rich in and give the festival its distinctive identity, providing a special experience to the audiences while inspiring the artists. The importance paid to the places containing the physical acts and listening experience challenges the curators with a creative quest to ever-innovate the marriage between sound and space by bringing diverse experimental multimedia artistic gestures into the highly charged interiors of ancient architecture.

That’s part of the strategy to build a strong identity and to make Semibreve not just another festival but a festival that provides a special experience to our audiences. We don’t want Semibreve to grow exponentially; instead, we intend to enrich and expand the experiences of watching shows by using special locations that we’re fortunate to have in Braga, a very old roman city with a lot of interesting places. We think these patrimonial contexts are not only special for the audiences but are also inspiring and exciting for the artists. Luis, one of the curators, told us when asked about how Braga and its surrounding influences the festival and the work presented.

Even though the art programming has not been the main motivation for the festival founders, the line-up of artists is as stunning as the interiors they are playing in. Among others, Félicia Atkinson has been commissioned by Semibreve in a partnership with the Maintenant Festival, in Rennes, to collaborate with flautist Violeta Azevedo. Of also Shelter Press and earlier Editions Mego’s François J. Bonnet and Stephen O’Malley are premiering as a duo with “Cylene”, propelling the spirit sourced at Ina GRM, a Paris studio formed by Pierre Schaeffer. In addition, Alva Noto is sharing his seductive techno symptomatology, while Lea Bertucci and Ben Vida present their debut work together. For this festival edition, Caterina Barbieri is making an appearance for the second time. At the same time, Ruben Spini and Marcel Weber (MFO) create a complex visual environment for everyone to share an experience of collective memory.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.