Guitars to Alto returns to Alentejo with concerts in December

O festival Guitars to Alto returns this year to Alentejo, for a special edition in Crato in December, which includes concerts of Miramar, Calcutta, Higher! and Mano a Mano with the Filarmónica do Crato, was announced today.

“ After five editions that marked the Alentejo music landscape between 2014 and 2019, and a successful program in Setúbal since 2024, the Guitars to Alto returns to Alentejo. The special edition of 2026 takes place in Crato, between 11 and 13 December ", says the organization, in a statement released today.

The concerts take place in four spaces “of great heritage value”: Monastery of Flor da Rosa, Cultural Centre of Gáfete, Mother Church and Church of Santo António.

The festival opens on December 11 with the duo Miramar, which joins guitarists Frankie Chavez and Fish. The organization of Guitars to Alto recalls that the project was born in the 2017 edition of the festival, which challenged guitarists to form new duos.

“ Nine years and three records later, they return to Alentejo with ‘Miramar III’, the latest chapter of a story told by two. If the first album was a travel diary and the second a place laboratory, this is a record of memories, which crosses acoustic guitar, electric and Portuguese in a cinematic and contemplative music ", says the organization of the festival.

On December 12, Calcutta, a project by the composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Teresa Castro, was set up.

Calcutta’s debut album, “Soon After Dawn”, published in January, is made of “emotional landscapes”, with a sound that gravitates between ‘folk’, ‘ambient’, ‘drone’ and “some experimentalism”, told Lusa.

The Calcutta project, which Teresa Castro started in 2015 with the demo “Love Path Again”, is part of a need that the singer has to play music and create an emotional space for herself, said in an interview with Lusa in January.

According to the organization of Guitars to Alto, live, with Luís Barros (battery and percussion) and Maria Amaro (contrabass, voice and keyboard), Calcutta “offers a hypnotic and dense performance”.

Also on December 12 is presented the show of the project Higher!, by Francisca Cortesão, Afonso Cabral, Inês Sousa and Sérgio Nascimento.

The project, created in 2019 at the invitation of the LU.CA Theatre and then presented throughout the country, as part of the celebrations of the 50 years of April 25, arrives at Crato “with a special proposal”.

Before the concert, workshops will be held to write songs with children and young people from municipal schools and seniors from homes and day centers. The result of the workshops will be presented at the concert.

Guitars à Alto closes with Mano a Mano, a duo composed by guitarists, and brothers, André and Bruno Santos, in a concert with the Filarmónica do Crato.

With several albums edited, the duo will present at the festival “The Christmas album”, edited in 2020, an album made of “inevitable classics”, two traditional Madeiran songs and one unpublished.

The album is composed of 12 themes, including classics such as “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night”, two songs “emblems of the traditional Madeiran repertoire, ‘Virgem do Parto’ and ‘My Child Jesus’”, and an unpublished one, “Blues for Santa Claus”, created by Bruno Santos, in which the two musicians play “in traditional Madeiran instruments, no rajão”, told Lusa in an interview in 2020.

The festival’s organization recalls that Guitars to Alto, created in 2014, “celebrate contemporary guitar as an instrument of creation”, promoting “author music and new sounds, in spaces with history and in a close connection to the territory, heritage and local traditions”.

Between 2014 and 2019 the festival took place in Alentejo, in 2020 had a digital edition, with performances and conversations with musicians. Since 2024, Guitars ao Alto presents a regular season at the ‘rooftop’ of the Municipal Forum Luísa Todi in Setúbal.