April 25th - it was raining heavily and the new tractor arrived
A composition for wind quintet with text for two actors based on testimonies from the people of Penela
Art'Ventus e Companhia da Chanca
For the first time on stage, the Art’Ventus Quintet joins the Companhia da Chanca to create a theatrical concert. Composer Camila Menino presents an original work for wind quintet, which is articulated on stage with testimonies from residents of Penela, interpreted by two actors. An evocation of the memories of those who lived through the April Revolution in the heart of the Portuguese interior.
The great transformative experiences and events we lived through together, as a country, city, and town, remain important landmarks and creators of social and personal identity; they are our collective memory, so that someone can say: I, like you, am also this. The events of April 25, 1974, the Carnation Revolution, are one of these clear examples, as are Portugal under the Estado Novo regime, or the years of transition to democracy.
There are images, stories, and characters that are fixed, carried, and have become symbols of this collective memory. They have endured thanks to television cameras, photojournalists, and announcements to the population. They happened in Largo do Carmo, in Terreiro do Paço, in the centers of political power. But there are other geographies, far from urban centers, where these events, despite the same significance, take on other meanings. They are other realities of the same History and they run the risk of being forgotten.
In a co-creation between the Art’Ventus Quintet and the Companhia da Chanca, the perspective of inland Portugal is brought to the stage: “I remember very well the 25th of April, it was raining heavily and the new tractor arrived.” These memories, as clear as a photograph, fuel this concert-performance, breathing through the original music of composer Camila Menino and expressed in the text, an adaptation by Paulo Mendes of the testimonies of the residents of Penela.
The musical work is divided into 5 movements (The last 10 minutes of fascism..., Revolution, Liberation, Democracy and Epilogue) and reflects the composer's youthful feelings about this part of our history. The movements are interspersed with stories and accounts from those who lived through those transformative years in the rural interior of the Beira region, in European immigration, in Lisbon or urban Mozambique, or even in the military experience in Angola. In all of them, Portugal is spoken of, and what it means to be Portuguese.
Abril em Penela
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Conversation Series: Before and After April 25th
Culture and Music
with TOZÉ BRITO
mediation Nuno Vidal
With the participation of Choral Polyphónico João Rodrigues de Deus
1st November / Sociedade Filarmónica Penelense / 5 p.m.
Civic Association
with CATARINA ROMÃO GONÇALVES
mediation Mário Duarte
With the participation of Coro Carlota Taylor
15 November / Casa Família Oliveira Guimarães / 5 p.m.
Movement and Music Workshops: Sound and Silence
Three workshops, led by actors from the Companhia da Chanca and musicians from the Art'Ventus Quintet, were held between February and June 2025 for 5th and 6th grade students from the Infante D. Pedro de Penela School Group. Participants were invited to take part in the creative process of the performance by exploring sounds and movements evoked by the emotions linked to each of the themes of the musical work's five movements.
Abril em Penela
SOME TESTIMONIES
"Mr. Postman, please deliver this letter to any girl you meet or know in the Pontinha neighborhood, in Lisbon, metropolis. (...) Last week 2 of my comrades died and others were brutally injured. I was also in the vehicle and was flanked by the two dead men and then I lost consciousness; I dream daily about the corpses and wake up screaming."
"But there was one here... and he was really against Salazar, Dr. Luís Oliveira Guimarães; he wasn't afraid, nor did he keep quiet, Dr. Luís was always going around outsmarting them and he was never arrested. Because he was a cultured, educated man, and knowledgeable about the law, they were afraid of him too..."
"And then the foreman felt obliged and called the boss. And the boss told him that we had to keep working, that that was for the others, it was for the big shots, not for the little guys. That it had nothing to do with us."
"There was a freedom of customs that was completely different from here. In Lourenço Marques, we would go out to dinner at the steakhouse and then go to the movies; we had picnics and barbecues in the countryside; we invited and socialized with friends; there was a transparent unity among the people."
"Every day, a teacher would leave Espinhal and climb the mountain to reach the Silveira Grande school and teach these two students. (...) We were children eager to learn and with abilities that our teacher knew how to understand and nurture: intelligent, sensitive, and interested in the world and in life. Solidarity, education, and the dream of democracy helped us to become the people we are today, people who have not lost their way."
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