Europeans nowadays live accustomed to a hyper-caloric diet of music experiences. The music festival explosion is well known and documented: we live in an era of music abundance and exuberance events. We have traded fewer, very successful artists for a plethora of records released weekly, with only a hundred copies produced each. We can choose between music festivals of any size: from macro festivals to boutique, every month of the year, focusing on any aspect, format or style or mixing them all.

A downside to this musical cornucopia appears: it’s hard to stand out and deliver a unique experience. However, the SEMIBREVE festival achieves it not only because it exposes us to outstanding musical curation, marvellous venues and superior acoustics but also by creating a homely environment to experience it all. An even more remarkable fact given that Semibreve is a festival focused on the avant-garde.

This year the festival started on a Thursday, under the magnificent scenario that is the Santuário do Bom Jesus do Monte located atop Mounte Espinho hill. There, Felicia Atkinson & Violeta Azevedo delivered a performance commissioned by the festival in partnership with Maintenance Festival in Rennes. The performance enthralled us with glockenspiel tones and haunting measures of sound. Progressing in oblong figures, through eerie melodies that transported us to oniric surroundings stimulated by the tantalising space.

Ghostly, ghastly moans out of machines, their output manipulated and moulded along real instruments, discrete piano stabs that presented a counterpoint to a stream of pelagic drones. Music took a life of its own at that instant, sublimated vocals haunting, chasing us, flutes and pan sounding as birdie chirps; a balmy, warm bath of sound and fond light. Pagan music was elevated to a sacred place by the space itself in communion with sheer artistic power and dominion.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.