ENCONTROS MED [medieval / mediterranean] 2025 | 7th Edition

The ENSEMBLE MED [mediterranean/medieval] annually sets up a meeting of artists from the Mediterranean Basin in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal, an ancestral place where tradition, innovation and contemporaneity coexist, paying homage to the intangible musical heritage of its Mediterranean and/or Medieval roots, within written and oral tradition, mainly in Adufe / Framedrum playing.ENCONTROS MED 2025 will take place from 7 to 9 November 2025, in the Historic Village of Monsanto, municipality of Idanha-a-Nova, UNESCO Creative City of Music, with workshops, public performances and one lecture, placing the Adufe and Mediterranean and Medieval heritage at the centre of the relationship between artists/trainers, participants and the local community.For 2025, we have invited Waed Bouhassoun, ambassador of Syrian music tradition and classical Arabic music, who will be accompanied by Neşet Kutas (Turkey/France). Waed Bouhassoun will lead a workshop on a song from eastern Syria, ‘Al-Maya 'Al-Maya,’ at the opening of the Meeting on 7 November at 6 p.m.; and Neşet Kutas will lead a workshop on rhythms from Turkey and Greece (def and bendir). Both will give a concert with the programme ‘La Joie de la Vie, Un air méditerranéen’ on 8 November at 9 pm at the Monsanto Parish Church, inspired by the Mediterranean as a meeting point between Africa, Europe and Asia, and an open space for the rest of the world.Amélia Fonseca, coordinator and founder of Adufeiras de Monsanto, an iconic group of adufe songs from the Beira Baixa and Idanha -a-Nova, promoting the oral tradition songbook of the historic village of Monsanto, will be joined by Rui Silva, a pioneer in artistic research on the modern “adufe” in Portugal and traditional “adufe” techniques, debuting the 1st Ensemble of Adufes (Intermediate/Advanced) II.Finally, Professor Manuel Pedro Ferreira will give a lecture on 8 November at 6 p.m., which will initially focus on the love songs of King Dinis, in relation to the oral tradition and traditional style of the songs from the Monsanto and Idanha-a-Nova area (20th century), as part of the 700th anniversary of the death of King Dinis. This year, we will start a new partnership with "Olhares do Mediterrâneo – Women's Film Festival", a film festival that began in Lisbon in 2014 as a space dedicated to the screening and promotion of films made by women from different shores of the Mediterranean, with the presence of Sara David Lopes, co-founder and co-director.Encontros Med 2025 is supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture, Youth and Sport / Directorate-General for the Arts and is part of the Creative Geography Landscape Festival Programme, a project promoted by NaturTejo GeoPark and co-organised by the Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova, with the support of the União de Freguesias de Monsanto and Idanha-a-Velha and Antena2.