In the years leading up to April 25th, music was often used as a form of protest, as a means of conveying messages that called for freedom, and names like Zeca Afonso, Sérgio Godinho, and José Mário Branco (among others) are still today unavoidable symbols of Portuguese protest music. But how would these songs sound if we swapped the plucked strings for bowed strings?
That's the experience that the Almedina Ensemble proposes with the concert "Cravos & Cordas", which honors the music of the April Revolution through an instrumental interpretation in a string quartet. This concert builds a bridge between generations by revisiting songs that marked the period of the April Revolution, bringing together those who lived through that historical moment with those who only know it through accounts and lessons learned. The show also takes on strong cultural and identity-related relevance, recovering songs that are symbols of intervention and resistance and reinterpreting them in an instrumental format for string quartet, promoting reflection on freedom and encouraging the preservation of collective memory.