From the Street with Love

Rehearsals take place in a room at AMI’s Centro Porta Amiga in Campanhã. When people arrive, everyone greets each other warmly – there are little jokes, scattered gesturesthat place each reunion within the shared, almost ritual dimension of a community. A ritual of recognition. Recognition among equals, as Jorge Prendas, the project’s artistic director and coordinator of Casa da Música’s Education Service, explains. He has led the initiative since 2009, in partnership with the League for Social Inclusion: “Som da Rua is an open port [Oporto] for everyone. It’s a space of inclusion, where it doesn’t matter whether you’re a professional musician, an amateur, a social worker, or someone going through a difficult time in life. What matters is the group”.

The weekly rhythm of rehearsals also helps everyone see this as a safe harbor – something especially important for those who live with the constant uncertainty of the streets, as many do. A sense of belonging plays a decisive role here, reawakening in each person a sense of responsibility, punctuality, and commitment. For every participant, it becomes a moment of personal recontextualization, the very opposite of the indifference that so often dulls their daily lives. And there is magic in this, as in almost everything touched by music: for an hour and a half, shadow turns into light. And the sun really does shine on everyone.

You can see it in Anabela Silva’s eyes. “I love coming here. I feel good around people who are vulnerable, because human beings need to be able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. People have become very self-centered; they only look at themselves. They turn their faces away when they pass someone who is homeless because they’re afraid they might end up in that situation one day”. She speaks from experience, not from what she’s read. It is on a knife’s edge that she writes – with authority, and with tenderness. She has published three books of poetry, despite hardships sometimes as intense and persistent as the clouds of this past winter. But music – music… “I used to listen to certain songs and cry and write. It was a way of letting out what was going on in my soul”, she says. Her voice – “I love to sing, I love the stage”, you could say she loves anything that allows her to expand – makes her, if not a protagonist (because that belongs to the collective), then a facilitator of communication and a constant source of generosity.

The instruments of this unusual orchestra are unusual as well, shaping the reality of Som da Rua according to Lavoisier’s Law: matter is neither created nor destroyed, but transformed. Or recycled. There are plastic bottles cut into strips to imitate the sound of rain; bottles filled with water and pebbles to recreate the sound of the sea; guiros made from corrugated tubes used in electrical work, played with sushi sticks from Casa da Música’s Restaurant; shakers built from soda caps; large wine jugs used as bass drums. There are no bombs – though the creativity is explosive. But it is in the service of peace.

Francisco Daniel, a recent member, was referred by the Entre Douro e Vouga Local Health Unit, in São João da Madeira. “I didn’t have anything to do, and they suggested this activity. It makes me happy, it brings me joy. I like the music, the instruments, communicating, meeting new people. I feel good here. And I want to shine on stage, not feel ashamed to be there”, he says. Joaquim Oliveira, older and more experienced in these circles, projects unshakable confidence when asked about the concert on May 21 at Casa da Música. “Everyone wants to give their best, and the team is very united. The atmosphere is exceptional, and nobody stutters here – we’re all in tune. I look at my colleagues and I can guarantee: they’ll face the stage with complete ease. That’s where we’ll find out who we are. It’s a big day”, he says.

In the rehearsal room, there is indeed a kind of group chemistry that, without hiding individual differences in personality, places everyone – musicians and non-musicians alike – on equal footing. The Education Service professionals act as catalysts for the participants’ talent, creativity, and passion, and participants respond enthusiastically to guidance, welcoming every suggestion or correction with gratitude. One after another, the songs leave the sheets pinned to a column in the room and travel up the upright column of each member of Som da Rua. Voices grow like flowers in a spring garden, unshadowed by the sadness and pain they have lived through. On the contrary: those very circumstances become raw material for creation. They sing the city that unites them, this angular Porto that does not deserve to have hidden corners. And each person’s voice becomes a brush in the creation of a shared painting.

While we wait for the moment when they will reveal it to us, let us tune our own spirits to the disarming honesty of a poem by Anabela Silva, titled “Homeless”:

When you pass me on the street
And turn your face away
Remember that I too was once happy
That I too was once loved
Today my home is the street
My roof the starry sky
And on the stones of the pavement I sleep
When I feel tired
And when the loneliness of night arrives
I cry, longing for the past
A past with father, mother, and children
Today I am ignored
So when you pass me on the street
And I reach out my hand
It is in hope of a little kindness
A little of your attention
To help me forget
A little of this loneliness.