The 2026 Music Season, promoted by the Benavente Municipal Council, was presented on Friday, September 26th, at Praça da República in Samora Correia. The initiative, running throughout October, features classical music performances from various periods, styles, and instrumental ensembles, with free admission.
Under the banner "O Património Toca-se" (Heritage is Touched), the 2026 edition adopts a new concept and identity, proposing an artistic journey through emblematic heritage sites in the municipality. Religious heritage will be highlighted, with churches and other historically significant locations serving as stages for high-quality musical programming, performed by nationally and internationally recognized artists. The aim is to provide an experience that goes beyond artistic enjoyment, encouraging the discovery of Benavente's architectural, historical, and cultural heritage.
The program also aims to showcase musicians native to or connected with the municipality of Benavente, such as Gil Gonçalves, Sérgio Chitas, Nuno Martins, and João Barradas. In the medium term, the music season intends to strengthen its training and mediation component, bringing music to schools and introducing children and young people to artistic creation and live music from an early age. This strategy aligns with the €300,000 investment made by the Municipality in artistic education, including specialized integrated music education at the Agrupamento de Escolas de Samora Correia.
The Mayor of Benavente, Sónia Ferreira, emphasized that the new identity of the Music Season aims to go beyond simply holding concerts and booking big names. "The new paradigm is not just to aim for full halls with big national names. We want to aim to include a strong component of training, mediation, and community involvement in the Music Season, through conferences, workshops, masterclasses, artist talks, open rehearsals, activities for schools and families, and participatory projects that bring the public closer to the musicians and the works presented."
The mayor added that this strategy seeks to create new dynamics for participation and cultural engagement, with the ambition for the event to become a differentiating asset for the municipality. "We want and we make Culture for everyone. We want all of this based on a unique identity, with a concrete concept and a well-defined cultural proposal, with the ambition that this event will, in the future, be a differentiating asset for our municipality nationally and internationally."
The initiative offers an experience where music reveals the identity of places, brings people closer to heritage, and transforms each space into a setting for encounters between memory, art, and the future, summarized in the phrase: "In the municipality of Benavente, Heritage is Touched."
