At a time when there is so much talk about walls being erected, of borders being rebuilt and of a generalized distrust of the “other” - the other that is “us” born in different circumstances - it is vital to position Imaterial as a platform for contacts among the various players in the music market at a global level. Especially due to the covid-19 pandemic it also reminds us of how essential the pulse of live music really is, as well as how different and striking are the collective experiences of gathering around sounds and witnessing it come to life before us.

The professional platform associated with Imaterial also brings us one of the most notable characteristics of intangible heritage - the ability to take a local identity asset around the world to help establish dialogues and meetings between peoples. This platform specifically aims to promote Iberian artists whose creation is anchored in popular roots, traditional music and oral tradition, including all those who take these roots as a pretext to rebalance, deconstruct or update past tracks.

So during three days, this place will be filled with conferences, round tables, workshops, speedmeetings and showcases, showing the rooted-Iberian music and expressions to a wide range of programmers, agents, promoters, producers, publishers, technicians and journalists from all over the world, enhancing the international reach of its expression and making a commitment to celebrate music linked to the past, guaranteeing its viability.

If there is an inner movement in the essence of the Imaterial, associated with the celebration and experience of the intangible heritage from the local reality of Alentejo, there is also another movement, directed to the exterior, driven by the desire to share all these lands treasures with those who can disseminate and show them to the world.

Fang i Núvols – mud and clouds. This is the title of the Catalan duo Magalí Sare & Manel Fortià’s first album. And it is easy to account for: while one of them ensures the rhythmic basis of the song (clay), the other one can drift freely over it (clouds). Let us call it, in short, earth and air. These two roles, the voice of Magalí and Manel’s double bass, change within each song, and blow a new life into the Ibero-American and Catalan songbooks (songs penned by the likes of Silvio Rodríguez, Simón Diaz, Henry Martínez or Castor Pérez and Glòria Cruz). Their approach is then filled with the freedom that only jazz trained musicians can deliver. A freedom that takes chances, but that also guarantees that one is always there supporting the other.

Image: ©Mireia Farran

The French chemist whom Patrícia Relvas and Roberto Afonso borrowed their duo’s designation from, stated that “in nature, nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”. Patrícia and Roberto have been applying this commandment to the traditional roots of Portuguese music since they first created, in 2012, this unique ensemble, whose seduction is based on the use of two voices and an electric guitar. After a couple of albums, É Teu (2017) and Projecto 675 (2014), that established them as “one of the most interesting names of Portuguese music of this decade”, according to the newspaper Público, Lavoisier went on the ambitious mission to create a collection of songs for the texts of one of the most important Portuguese authors of the 20th century. Miguel Torga by Lavoisier: Viagem a Um Reino Maravilhoso beautifully plunges into the wonderful humanistic and earthly map of Torga’s words.

Imagem: ©André Macedo

Apparitions, of greater or minor religious inclination, may take more or less unexpected forms. In João Morais’ case, a musician with a long CV in the Portuguese punk-rock scene, this apparition or epiphany struck him in the shape of a campaniça guitar. Feeling that the time had come to connect himself with traditional music, he still flirted with the Portuguese guitar, but soon realised there would be no wedding. Maybe it was an accident, perhaps with was fate, but João would then fall in love with the campaniça. Since then, some five years ago, he has worked as O Gajo in a process of rediscovery of the acoustic possibilities by a musician that grew up with electricity. When he was about to record his last album, Subterrâneos, he decided to call Carlos Barretto and José Salgueiro, taking this personal investigation a step further. An investigation where an instrument that used to be stroke in local fairs and taverns finds a new voice in the hands of a musician of this day and age.

Storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest practices. It is one of the most defining traditions of peoples’ identities, creating bonds, passing on knowledge and values, building lineages and belongings. But, at each given moment, one has to figure out the best way to do it. Having grown up on poetry and folk music, Laura LaMontagne found in PicoAmperio, a musician coming from hip-hop, the ideal partner for her singing and her stories. Together they travel back to the Galaic-Portuguese tradition but shed some electronic rhythms on top of it, sparking a new music where, according to Mondosonoro magazine, “tradition and experimentation call for a common language of transgression and respect in equal parts”. And they do so as if it is a second skin to them, making of each song a song of today and not a mere historical update.

Imagem: ©Denís Estevez

Jon Luz arrived in Lisbon in 1998, as part of the team that was working on a play by the choreographer Clara Andermatt. When it was finished, he decided to stay in Portugal. A true multi-instrumentalist, it did not take long for Jon to claim a solid place in the Portuguese music scene, thanks to his exuberant creativity. Little by little, he joined other Cape Verdean musicians, such as Ildo Lobo, Lura or Tito Paris, but also António Zambujo or Sara Tavares, spreading all over the immense glow that radiates from the strings of his cavaquinho or his guitar. Now he chose to go back to one of those many musical encounters he nurtured over the years, reconnecting with Maria Alice, the unparalleled voice of the sweet melancholy we call morna. In Jon Luz Invites Maria Alice, the two approach classics by Paulino Vieira or B. Leza, add a few originals and come up with their own morna. A morna proudly born in Cape Verde, that also settled in Lisbon.

Imagem: ©Dayan Dornelles

Enrique and Roberto Cubero may share father and mother, but they also share a firm belief that tradition and modernity are two sides of the same coin. And they do believe that it is not always clear if we are facing one side or the other. When tradition is brought back to life in the present, it already transforms itself through its interpreters, having grown up in a different context from the original. The simultaneous release of the albums Errantes Telúricos and Proyecto Toribio in 2021 albums proves it: in Errantes Telúricos, Los Hermanos Cubero appear before us as guardians of La Alcarria’s folk music, welcoming musicians of different musical genres to play with them; in Proyecto Toribio, they act like the representatives of contemporaneity, joining ten violinists to honour the mythical Toribio del Olmo. After all, being inside or outside of tradition may turn out to be just a matter of perspective.

Image: ©Blanca Regina