Elza Gonçalves
Mayor of the Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova

It is with great honour that, for the first time as Mayor of the Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova, I greet all those who are part of this extraordinary event — Fora do Lugar – Early Musics International Festival.
More than a meeting dedicated to early music, Fora do Lugar is a place for discovery, sharing, and identity. It echoes the soul of our land, where the past is reinvented and the future is built with the hands and the heart of our people.
Idanha-a-Nova is a municipality with a unique energy — where culture flourishes amidst historic villages, open landscapes, and a community that welcomes with generosity and wisdom. This festival is also a celebration of that collective strength, which distinguishes us and fills us with pride.
With every concert, every encounter, every moment lived “out of place” (fora do lugar), we reaffirm our conviction that culture is one of the pillars of human development and territorial cohesion.
May this 2025 edition of Fora do Lugar continue to inspire, unite, and reveal what is most authentic in Idanha-a-Nova and its people — for it is within them that the true music of our land resides.

Paulo Longo
Division of Culture and Cultural Heritage 
Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova

The beauty of places is measured in many ways. In the “most beautiful place in the world”, being Out (Fora) is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful ways of paying tribute to it. Few examples can probably be found of a happier interplay between culture, people, and landscape. One cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. Balance defines the ecosystem where I want to believe everyone is aware of their part, guided by the thread of music, transformed into a unifying bond. There lies the measure of beauty, or at least one of them. Through it we reflect, we move, we yearn, we share a sense of belonging, in an ephemeral experience of conscious continuity that renews itself each year, with each edition.
In Idanha there is no room for the torpor of winter. Between cold and rain, crystalline dawns and evening mists, we give more of ourselves in search of places. Where music will dwell. Where, like companions at table, we gather. Where we experience the earth.
The birds of the sky are partners, not just backdrop. A dinner tells life stories, it is not merely food. The weather invites, it does not drive away.
It is so every year, since we dared to be Out of Place (Fora do Lugar). Since the threshold of the obvious was crossed. It is no secret, and we are not alone. With eyes fixed on Idanha, the world pays attention to all of us who, each year, build more community, who revisit the landscape of events, who invite those from near and far to take part, in some way, in the variations on the theme of days that define each Fora do Lugar.
Each year, more than an invitation, it is a cyclical ritual of renewal, where culture is the sacred, essential matter around which we gather in communion. Like all sacred matter, it must be cared for, tended to by the faithful. To care for it is an act of faith and of love, for the whole and for one’s neighbour. Because it is fragile. And in that condition it represents us above all, for, fragile like it, we are not seldom fickle and negligent. We run the terrible risk of losing ourselves in the process and thus of losing our north, our capacity to be guided by the values of that beauty which transcends matter and time. That is why it is so important for us to be Fora do Lugar, today more than ever, when the winds of change blow and we do not know where they will lead.
But if Out is the Place where we meet, Out of Place (Fora do Lugar) we are in the right place. Always.

Filipe Faria
Director, Festival Fora do Lugar + Arte das Musas

The path is made of old steps. It was here before us, and everything waits, as if we were part of a greater sediment. On the first day we arrive anew — or do we return? This place is not merely a setting; it is a mirror, and also a body. With time, we learn to walk, yet there are places that teach us not to — moved by an invisible force — of the landscape, perhaps? — a force that invites us, or perhaps compels us, to be not only gestures, but all the stories. The earth holds us and, at the same time, invents us. We inhabit the place. This place.We are, as always, a translation of the land and of the places where we meet. We are born of this intimate bond; we are born of what we eat, of how we celebrate… and nothing is untouched by the ground beneath our feet. We are shaped by the landscape.Here, in Idanha, time has a palpable density — something beyond chronology, a kind of sedimentation. Here, we do not measure the ground. We leave a little of ourselves in this earth — humus — and that is why the path is made of old steps. Everything mingles with the wind, with the water, with the mist. And, as always, we bring not only our own marks; we are received by others.To be out of place is, in the end, to return. A great journey, a great voyage around the world — all here, all at once — all here, in the present, in the light or in the dark. We come to realise that we are not intruders here, but simply a pretext — a good pretext. Nothing belongs to us, and yet nothing is foreign. It is a pact: we give and we receive — though perhaps we receive more than we give.We record this walk, and we write not only dates and destinations. We write the silences that come before every sound. And we understand that the journey never ends, for we always return — not to the same place, but to the same gesture. To be here. To be out of place*… and, for that very reason, at home.