Madeira Organ Festival 2013

Promoting Madeira through culture

From October 18 to 28, the IV edition of the Madeira Organ Festival will take place. With a programme centred on the works of the great European composers, in a variety of genres and repertoires, covering a period ranging from the Renaissance to the Contemporary period, this is an event which has acquired maximum relevance in the annual cultural agenda of the Autonomous Region of Madeira, due to the quality and difference it offers, in the context of the programming of our annual festivals.

Created four years ago within the scope of the project "Festivais Culturais da Madeira" (Madeira Cultural Festivals), the Organ Festival is presented as the final corollary of the strategy developed over more than a decade in the recovery of the organ heritage of the Region, with a historical legacy of more than twenty instruments from the Iberian, Italian and English organ schools, of which relevant testimonies remain in the churches of Madeira. Over the years, following the work of inventorying and organological description, the restoration of several of these instruments was carried out methodically, with the consequent recording and publishing of some CDs, with different repertoires and adjusted to each of the organs, in order to continue its knowledge and dissemination. This process of heritage safeguarding would gain increased visibility with the publication of the book Orgãos das Igrejas da Madeira (Church Organs of Madeira). Finally, connecting the two extremes of an integrated process that goes precisely from surveying and inventorying, to the knowledge and enjoyment of this very singular fringe of our cultural heritage, we have the creation and realization of a great Organ Festival, where we try to show, in close harmony, the multiple forms of Beauty, historically expressed in the art of space (architecture) and in the art of time (music), here again reconnected in the aesthetic enjoyment that only culture can provide.

Today, the Region has eight restored historical organs, plus the great organ created from scratch for the Colégio church, whose intervention is crucial to the festival's program. Throughout this journey of rehabilitation, special mention should be made of the work of master organ builder Dinarte Machado, in the restoration, and the contribution of organist João Vaz, in the programming and artistic direction of the festival, both with deep knowledge of the diversity and richness of our organ heritage and who have always accompanied, with great enthusiasm and professional sensitivity, the entire process that led to the realization of the Madeira Organ Festival.

To enlarge, to qualify and to diversify the cultural offer, always attracting new audiences, this is a strong goal of the "Madeira Cultural Festivals" project, co-financed by EU funds, and that, as a brand promoted by the Regional Secretariat of Culture, Tourism and Transportation, will certainly find in this 4th edition of the Organ Festival - by the exchanges and attractiveness it raises - a very special accomplishment of that goal: to see the public affluence grow among residents and visitors, promoting the best of our heritage and artistic identity in the wider market of cultural tourism.

João Henrique Silva
Regional Director of Cultural Affairs

IV Organ Festival of Madeira

"The pipe organ is held in great esteem in the Latin Church, a traditional musical instrument whose sound is capable of giving the ceremonies of worship extraordinary splendor and powerfully raising the spirit to God." These words from the Constitution Sacrossantum Concilium on the Sacred Liturgy, published in December 1963 following the Second Vatican Council, not only underline the organ's long connection with the liturgy, but seem to reflect the unique dimension that composers have seen in that instrument over the centuries. In fact, throughout its history, both in the liturgical context and elsewhere, the organ, with its dynamic range, its timbric richness, and, above all, its unique ability to prolong sound to infinity, has shown itself to be especially suited to the expression of an indefinable reality.

The Madeira Organ Festival crowned a consistent process of recovery, expansion and dissemination of the Madeiran organ heritage, developed over more than a decade by the Regional Government of Madeira. Over the past three years, the Madeira Organ Festival has sought to enhance this heritage by highlighting the many facets of the organ and the specific characteristics of each of the instruments found in the Region. At the same time, it has made known the immense richness and variety of the organ repertoire and, in collaboration with the Church, has encouraged the organ's participation in Madeira's cultural and social life.

The program for this fourth edition of the Madeira Organ Festival, which once again counts on the presence of artists of unquestionable importance in the national and international panorama, includes a repertoire that spans more than five centuries (presenting the organ not only in its soloistic aspect, but also associated with singing, trumpet, saxophone or percussion), a conference on the role of the organ in today's liturgy, and a special focus on improvisation - an art that has always been associated with organ practice. Spirituality is a common trait in the different programs presented, and it shines through both in music written with an evident liturgical purpose (in its Catholic or Protestant context) and in works whose composition was inspired by human values, such as balance of life or peace and harmony among peoples.

João Vaz
Artistic Director