Jorge Prendas – Education Service Coordinator – About the 2024/2025 Season

Observing Nature provides us with inspiration for our lives. Education finds in it examples, rhythms, and the path to yield its fruits. In Nature, the cycle begins when a seed falls to the ground. It then germinates, and a sprout emerges. The sprout grows and strengthens. Time is crucial for us to have a tree that will produce flowers and fruits, which, in turn, contain seeds. These seeds, falling to the ground, initiate a new cycle. This perpetual motion creates woods, forests, life. In Education, everything also starts with seeds that are sown in the hope that they will germinate and, over time, transform into trees, flowers, and fruits, multiplying with each cycle and giving much more meaning to life.

Casa da Música started its sowing a long time ago, carrying out projects with communities and schools even before the building existed. Porto 2001 was being prepared, and many began their musical involvement in projects like Votzek, Brundibar, and other community operas. These were the first seeds sown in fertile and eager soil.

In 2025, Casa da Música will celebrate its 20th anniversary, and it is time to celebrate. Looking back, since 2005, there has been an educational programme designed for everyone. Year after year, the Educational Service’s agenda contains a good handful of seeds: some are a baby’s First Concert; others, Workshops conducted with schoolmates; still others, projects where people from diverse communities find a space to discover Music and, through it, express their emotions; and finally, seeds that offer Training opportunities for Musicians, Teachers, and Music Lovers. All who find space here are the roots, trunks, branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits we have been planting and nurturing. From the first seeds, new trees have already grown. Today, among the musicians and educators passing through Casa da Música, there are several who had their first musical experience in the activities of the Educational Service. They were fertile ground where music found space to blossom.

Nature is rich in sounds: the singing of birds, the murmur of waters, the whistling of the wind, the rumbling of thunder. In Casa da Música, there are also many sounds: voices, instruments, clapping, footsteps. The 24/25 Agenda of the Educational Service offers hundreds of opportunities to discover, hear, and create these sounds. Welcome to a new agenda and a new year!