[EN] Early Music is not Old. We are against chronocentrism, e.g. the idea that the Music from the Present is an evolution in relation to the Music of the Past: “Music is the best antidote against historical amnesia.”

Ensemble Med [med: mediterrânean/medieval] is a music performing-research lab aiming at exploring the limits between Early Music and World Music i.e. the written source versus the oral tradition, searching their own living and actual interpretation, in a multicultural and transversal mindset.
The Ensemble has worked with several artists, namely Yenisey Gomez (singing),  Rui Silva (historical percussion), Didier François (viola d’amore a chiavi) and more recently, master piper Carlos Nunez (International Keyboard Festival [IKFEM] Tui, Galicia, 2020), with a programme on Gallaecian-Portuguese sacred songs, Mauricio Molina (Encontros Med 2020, Monsanto, Idanha-a-Nova) and Adrian Rodriguez Van der Spoel (Encontros Med 2021, Monsanto, Idanha-a-Nova).

The Ensemble started in 2012 in Utrecht, the Netherlands where they been invited to play in several early music festivals in that country. In more recent years they have performed in Portugal, but also also in Georgia, Turkey, France, highlighting most recently at Rota do Românico (Mosteiro de Travanca); Festival Internacional Artes Vertentes, Tiradentes, Brasil;  Auditorium André de Gouveia | Cité Universitaire in Paris; Bet Israel Synagogue in Izmir (Turkey); Imago Mundi Festival (Clermont-Ferrand, France); Casa da Música (Porto), and Museu do Oriente (Lisboa), live for the National Portuguese Radio (Antena2).

They are the artistic resident ensemble for an annual festival dedicated to Medieval/Mediterranean frame drums, in the historical village of Monsanto, Idanha-a-Nova, UNESCO Creative City of Music, since 2018, which is named ENCONTROS MED since 2019. In 2020 and 2021, due to the pandemics, the Ensemble explored annual artistic residencies within the scope of electronic music together with José Alberto Gomes (Sonoscopia / Porto), proposing a new look on the medieval work “The Song of the Sibyl” with music direction by Maurício Molina (Medieval Course of Besalu / City University of New York). In 2021, the 2nd online artistic residence "1515: Dürer's Rhinoceros" presented works from Iberian and Italian songbooks of the 15th / 16th century and two works by José Alberto Gomes (2021), under musical direction of Adrián Rodríguez van der Spoel, musical director of the Dutch early music ensemble "Música Temprana". In 2023, they were selected as a European Festival Emergent Artist (EFFEA) by the European Festivals Association (EFA), with the ADUFEIR@ project, an artistic residency on the oral tradition heritage of the historic village of Monsanto with Amélia Fonseca (Adufeiras de Monsanto) and José Alberto Gomes (composition and electronics).

The "Intercultural Dialogue in the Medieval Mediterranean" programme has been co-funded since 2018 by the Directorate-General for the Arts, the Portuguese Institute of Camões, the Shuttle Programme of the Municipality of Porto and IberMúsicas.