Space Festival brings experimental music to six municipalities.

The Space Festival will bring experimental and improvised music to six municipalities across the country during the month of November, in a project that seeks to program events in spaces outside the usual circuits.

The traveling festival kicks off with two days of programming in Montemor-o-Velho (Friday and Saturday), followed by Valença (Sunday and Monday), Vila Nova de Cerveira (11), Paredes de Coura (12 and 13), Caminha (14) and Arcos de Valdevez (15 and 16).

“This is a festival dedicated to improvised and experimental music, with different offerings in municipalities where this type of music is not normally available in their theaters and cultural spaces,” Sofia Pancada, a member of the Space Festival organization, told the Lusa news agency.

The initiative, now in its 10th edition and which has taken on an itinerant character since 2022, presents different proposals in each municipality, with concerts that play in different genres and that work with "a very wide variety of instruments, ranging from the most classical to the less conventional and more electronic," he said, noting that there is also a concern to ensure a balance between more established and more emerging artists.

“There is also the goal of not having an intense program, so that people can take their time, eat at local restaurants and book accommodation. It is not a single-venue festival, which also seeks to promote tourism that respects the local communities ,” said Sofia Pancada.

The audiovisual performance Omnispectrum in Montemor-o-Velho, which takes the audience on a journey to the Atacama Desert; a concert by the duo Calcutá and Maria Amaro at the Verdoejo Cultural Center (Valença); a work by percussionist Luís Bittencourt using a jerrycan or plastic bags at the Cerveira Biennial Museum; a concert at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit (Paredes de Coura), which brings together German artist Almut Kühne with Portuguese artists João Pedro Brandão and Marcos Cavaleiro; a performance in Caminha by the chamber quartet tellKujira, which swaps violins for two electric guitars; and a concert by Krake (Pedro Oliveira) at the Miranda Picnic Park (Arcos de Valdevez), after a hike, are some of the festival's offerings.

The festival has free admission, with the possibility of a voluntary donation from participants.

The Space Festival is organized by the Rock'n'Cave association, in partnership with the Space Ensemble, with the support of the Directorate-General for the Arts and the municipalities involved.

The full program can be found on the festival's website .