Orfeanismo: local musicking and the building of society in provincial Portugal

Abstract

In the XXI century in the inner country of Portugal, non-professional musical formations are at the centre of local musical life, working on the sustainability and conjunction of the cultural social live and the natural place. Focused on the case of ‘Orfeão da Covilhã’, an almost centenary choral formation, the research aims to understand the reasons behind these structured sonic undertakings, which involve so many people in preparing and presenting music during long periods of time. I sustain that musicking in the scope of the Orfeão da Covilhã is a dialogue, negotiation and coexistence action within a vital whole: of the individual with the society, of the local and the translocal (the transnational and sometimes the planetary sphere), of the present time with the future, of what has been experienced and what is expected to experience, of contingencies and utopia, and of reason and resonance.