Laboratories

Capella Sanctae Crucis is a laboratory for musical study and practice focused on Portuguese polyphony from the 16th and 17th centuries, created by Tiago Simas Freire in 2012. Part of the vast multidisciplinary project Mundos e Fundos (Worlds and Depths) of the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies of the University of Coimbra (CECH-UC), it builds bridges between research and musical practice, in search of a sound that revives the still little-known Portuguese musical heritage.

It owes its name to the musical chapel of the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, a centre of extraordinary artistic activity, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, from which the musical sources that constitute its main object of study originate.

Working mainly from unpublished manuscripts preserved in the General Library of the University of Coimbra, programmes are designed that reflect the richness of the original context of the works. Faithful to a philological approach, historically and culturally informed beyond what is expressed in the sources, the interpretation questions and explores the texture and balance of sound, discourse and phrasing, instrumentation and ornamentation.

He performs in concert at various international festivals and his projects are hosted in artistic residencies at the CCR in Ambronay, the Mazā Ģilde in Riga, the Pavia Barrocca Festival, the Cité de la Voix in Vézelay, the Royaumont Foundation, the CNCM Voce in Pigna and the University of Coimbra. He has received support from Creative Europe, DRAC Rhône-Alpes, Centre National de la Musique, Adami, Cité de la Voix, Direcção Geral das Artes, Programa Caixa Cultura, University of Coimbra, Centro de Estudos Clássicos e Humanísticos, Fundação Bullukian, Fundação Renaud, and Banco BCP.

The ‘Bridging Musical Heritage’ project, a partnership between the University of Coimbra, the University of Valladolid, Artway, O Bando de Surunyo and Capella Sanctae Crucis, was awarded the REMA Prize for best European cooperation project in 2024.
Following the release of its first album, Zuguambé, by Harmonia Mundi, Capella Sanctae Crucis is behind the creation of a series of book-albums, Mundos e Fundos, in partnership with the University of Coimbra and Artway Records, dedicated to rediscovering Portugal's musical heritage.

More than just a group, it is a project to rescue a rich and little-known musical heritage. Each concert is a new discovery of true cathedrals of sound lying dormant in Portuguese archives. Each programme is a new page in its History of Music.

O Bando de Surunyo is an early music ensemble specialized in the performance of 16th and 17th century music. The name is borrowed from a Portuguese villancico de negro written in the 1640’s meaning “a chattering of starlings”. The ensemble is the performative and laboratorial front of a multidisciplinary project which focuses mainly on unpublished and unknown repertoire from Portuguese sources. Since its creation, O Bando de Surunyo has performed over 30 pieces as modern premiers. The project has since a wider scope, having as its main goal to deliver to todays’ audiences the plurality, eclecticism and richness of European Renaissance and Baroque thought and music.

The preparation of works for performance is supported by a process of thorough musicological research involving a detailed study of cultural and interpretative context, critical edition of the music directly from the original sources (by the director of the ensemble), and a careful observation of historically informed performance practices.

The intimate relation between word and sound that emerged in the transition from the 16th to the 17th centuries is the central axis for O Bando de Surunyo’s approach to the study and performance of the repertoire. Music placed itself at the service of the text, conveying, illustrating and enhancing the latter’s poetic and affective content. The eloquent and efficacious communication of this content in its multiple readings and functions -— literal, theatrical, historical, symbolical, religious, political and philosophical — constitutes the basis for the construction of an interpretative conception which pursues today the same rhetorical goal of the time: to amuse and to move the audience through word, gesture and sound. In Cicero’s famous words: docere, delectare, movere. The project, therefore, aims at a wide aesthetical and communicative reach, which, using historical instruments and performance practices, aspires to a result that is both artistically and emotionally meaningful for contemporary audiences.

The vocal ensemble Quarto Tom consists of four distinguished singers who have won some of the most prestigious awards in their field, including Gramophone Music Awards, Deutscher Schallplattenkritik and PLAY – Portuguese Music Awards. With a joint career spanning almost two decades, they perform regularly at festivals throughout Europe. Their work exploring the repertoire for four mixed voices from various periods and latitudes is particularly fruitful in 16th and 17th century Portuguese polyphony.

Linked to the Mundos e Fundos project of the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies at the University of Coimbra, Quarto Tom carries out intensive laboratory work on works based on original printed and manuscript sources, most of which are preserved in the General Library of the University of Coimbra. Noteworthy are its participation in the seed project ‘Seeing what the past (or) heard - proposal for the spatial and acoustic reconstruction of the Old Cathedral of Coimbra in the 16th century’ and the various artistic residencies around the rich musical legacy of the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra.

Suave Armonia is a baroque ensemble dedicated to the study, editing, and performance of the contents of the musical manuscripts of the Music Collection of the General Library of the University of Coimbra, focusing on the set of 16 cartapácios attributed to the Canons Regular of the Order of Saint Augustine of the extinct Monastery of Santa Cruz in the same city. Under the direction of Carlos Meireles and the scientific guidance of José Abreu and Paulo Estudante, it is an initiative that branches out from the Mundos e Fundos project of the Center for Classical and Humanistic Studies at the University of Coimbra. A highlight of this ensemble's journey is the phonographic recording—with support from GDA and editing by MPMP, scheduled for release in late 2025—of some of the unpublished pieces from musical manuscript 237, focusing on the polyphonic repertoire for Easter 1654.

The Musurgia Ensemble, founded in 2020 by João Francisco Távora and Helder Sousa, is a group with a variable line-up dedicated to performing instrumental music from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. One of its main aims is to recover Portugal's musical heritage, developing projects that combine artistic performance and musicological research. This includes the projects ‘Ad Vesperas’ (in partnership with the Quarto Tom Ensemble), ‘Solfa tangida’ and ‘Iste confessor Domini’, developed between 2023 and 2025, in partnership with the Mundos e Fundos project (Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies at the University of Coimbra).

Ars Lusitana is an ensemble of varying team compositions, dedicated to researching and recovering Portuguese musical heritage. Founded by Maria Bayley in 2011, the ensemble encourages direct dialogue with sources: early research that aims to shed light on little known or neglected music by delving into contexts, historical pedagody, and, whenever possible, direct reading of musical sources. This culminates in a live concert of Portuguese music, occasionally presented in parallel with contemporary repertoires from other European countries.

Ars Lusitana has staged concerts in several countries, in festivals such as Musica Antica da Camera (Voorschoten, Netherlands), the festival on Ancient Music of the Cathedral of Valencia (Spain), the cycle "Art et Leonhard" (Basel, Switzerland), the cycle Sons Antigos a Sul (Lagos, Portugal), the Ancient Music Festival of Daroca (Spain), the Ciclo de Música Antigua de Guadalajara (Spain), the Estoril-Lisboa Festival (Lisbon, Portugal), Cistermúsica (Portugal), and the Wooden Organ Festival (Funchal, Portugal), among others.

It has presented various programmes of both civic and religious nature, from programas variados, de carácter sacro e camerístico, from masses and vespers to songbooks, madrigals, and instrumental works, among others. It participated in the integral recording of the works of Manuel Rodrigues Coelho, alongside the organist André Ferreira.

The ensemble also has as its mission the development of pedagogical activities, having organised workshops in Portugal focusing on Renaissance music. Its next album is being prepared for launch, supported by DGARTES and by the Mundos & Fundos project of the University of Coimbra.

Tiago Matias, guitarist and lutist with 5 solo-edited albums, a CECH researcher with PhD on Artistic Studies from the University of Coimbra, combines his artistic and academic career in pursuit of his research focus: music for the viola, or the baroque guitar, in Portugal during the 17th and 18th centuries.

From Mexico to Malaysia, going through Brazil and Greece, Tiago Matias is currently on a solo world tour with the programme "Cifras de Viola", comprised of the viola repertoire from Musical Manuscript 97 of the BGUC. The agenda of this tour includes 26 concerts – between July 2025 and October 2026 – across 12 different countries.

Contributing to a more regular and scientific study in the field of historical choreology in Portugal, Portingaloise has been promoting activities such as Laboratories and Academic Meetings in the field of ancient dance or other related areas (aesthetics, ethnography, art history, musicology, theatre) since 2016. Following a theoretical-practical approach, we aim not only to save the repertoire from oblivion, but also to reflect ancient content in the present space and time, researching the contemporary body's interpretation of the definitions of movement and gesture from other contexts.

The Voz de Fora Ensemble is dedicated to the interpretation of music from the 15th and 16th centuries through the in-depth study of historical sources and the implementation of informed interpretative practices. Started in 2019 under the name Canto Mensurable Ensemble, it adopted its current designation in 2024, consolidating its identity as a group of variable formation and artistic dynamism.

It has participated in multiple concerts, with stand-out performances in Aveiro, Lisbon, Oliveira do Bairro (in the Ciclo de Música Antiga, 2022), Coimbra (in the Orphika Festivals, 2023 and 2024, with artistic residences established as part of the Mundos e Fundos Symposia, from the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies of the University of Coimbra), and Santarém (at the FOS Festival, 2023).

The Voz de Fora Ensemble is a part of the research of the secondary project Mundos e Fundos, of the Centre for Classical and Humanistic Studies of the University of Coimbra, which values critical study, as well as the edition and interpretation of 16th-century Portuguese musical sources, namely those found in the Musical Collection of the General Library of the University of Coimbra.

^{Eunice Abranches d’Aguiar - Soprano}

^{Hugo Sanches - Vihuela; Lute}

^{Xurxo Varela - Gamba Viola}

^{Pedro Couto Soares - Flutes}

^{Jorge Álvaro Ferreira - Flutes and direction}

Cantar Poesia is an ensemble dedicated to the interpretation of poems set to music throughout the 16th century, particularly in the context of the Portuguese and Italian courts. Part of Irene Brigitte Puzzo's doctoral research, the project highlights a specific interest in compositions in Portuguese preserved in Iberian songbooks.

Based on the theoretical and analytical reflection developed by the doctoral student, the ensemble is an essential part of practice-based research. As part of this work, several laboratory sessions have already enabled the creation of polyphonic reconstructions of ‘monodias’ identified in the sources and contrafacta of poems whose original music has not survived to the present day. Other sessions are still in development, and proposals for the historical pronunciation of Portuguese are also expected to be formulated, with a view to a more informed interpretative practice.

With regard to performance activity, highlights include presentations at events of recognised international importance, namely DNA – Festival Internazionale delle Arti (Italy), Encontros de Música Antiga de Loulé – Francisco Rosado (Portugal) and Festival Internacional Pórtico do Paraíso (Spain).

Founded in 2019 at CECH, the Laboratory of Rationality and Applied Ethics fosters interdisciplinary debate on ethically complex cases, particularly in hospital ethics. It organizes public lectures, colloquia and debates, and runs an Observatory that monthly analyses clinical cases, producing joint reports. Since 2021, its scope has expanded to include Institutional Ethics.

Founded in 1991 by professors from the Classical Studies Section, the Thíasos Cultural Association is today part of CECH. With 34 years of history and 36 total productions, this theatre group is exclusively dedicated to classical theatre and its adaptations, performing its plays before diverse audiences in Portugal and beyond. In recent years, it has presented What to Do with Alcestis (2022), Medea (2023), The Symposium (2024) and, in 2025, Helen.

Created in 1999 and turned into a cultural association in 2002, Classical Theme Theatre Festival (FESTEA) is dedicated to the promotion of classical theatre and its contemporary rewritings. As a part of the CECH knowledge transfer activities in Coimbra, it has become a landmark in the cultural agenda of the city and the region. More than just a festival, FESTEA is a space for artistic creation, citizenship, and reflection, unlocking new ways of viewing the Graeco-Roman legacy and bringing classical theatre closer to diverse and contemporary audiences.

The ‘Thespis – CECH’ database fits into the Centre's Secondary Projects ‘Rewriting Myth’ and 'Classics & Open Science'. The database aims to provide information about Greek and Latin theatre performances, produced and staged within Portuguese contemporary theatre. Following the example of similar platforms, namely the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama of Oxford and the Laboratorio ‘Dionysos’ - Archivio digitale del teatro antico of Trento, it is meant to adhere to an online and easy to consult format. The core of the ‘Thespis – CECH’ digital archive consists of data already compiled and published in the three books Representações de Teatro Clássico no Portugal Contemporâneo (Lisboa and Coimbra 1998, 2001; Coimbra 2004). However, it is currently being updated with performances staged between 2004 and 2021. Each data sheet will provide a description of the given production, along with a bibliography, links to external sources (official webpages and other online resources), and a gallery for photos and videos. The target audience includes not only scholars and researchers of Classical and Theatre Studies, but also students, teachers, and practitioners.