Palheta Bendita

About the events

Palheta Bendita is a world music festival co-organized by the Tirsense Cultural Association and the Santo Tirso City Council. It originated as a result of the instruction in various instruments—particularly the accordion and the bagpipes—offered at the Ponte Velha School of Traditional Music, which operates in this community.

The festival began on a very small scale in 2005 and has grown steadily over the years; it is now a leading event in Portugal and Galicia within the circuit of instrument-maker exhibitions.

As usual, in addition to the aforementioned musical instrument makers fair, there will also be lectures, workshops, and concerts dedicated to contemporary folk music from various continents.

Goals of the festival

  1. To promote the exchange of popular musical cultures and practices from different peoples with the local community, the music community, and the general public through performances and musical instrument workshops
  2. Promote, through performances, the integration of ethnic minorities and local immigrant communities
  3. Promote the integration of communities with specific needs through participatory activities
  4. To promote educational activities that bring the public into contact with different cultures through musical instrument workshops
  5. To promote the work of Portuguese and international musical instrument makers through the Instrument Makers Fair
  6. To promote knowledge and research on musical instruments through lectures and the Fair, as forums for dialogue
  7. Encourage musical collaboration through informal jam sessions, where professional and amateur musicians play together
  8. Promote recognition of musicians in the oral tradition within their local communities
  9. To promote the cultural heritage and musical knowledge of musicians from the oral tradition among the broader music community
  10. Encourage the reading, research, production, and promotion of popular music through a space for selling CDs and books

2025 Edition

Relive some of the highlights from the 2025 edition

Associação Cultural Tirsense

What is "ACT"?

The Tirsense Cultural Association (ACT) is a nonprofit organization founded in Santo Tirso in August 2001. Its activities have included a film club; the amateur theater group “A Corte da Mula”; the organization of the Santo Tirso Comic Book Festival; the children’s choir “Os Activistas”; and the publication of 10 issues of the magazine “ACTO.” However, it is in the field of popular music that it has been most active.

The Ponte Velha School of Traditional Music, founded in 2003, operates out of its headquarters in Moinho de Baixo, a property owned by the Friends of Sanguinhedo Association. Weekly classes of bagpipes, Hurdy-Gurdy and percussion are held there. At the same location, students participate in workshops on musical performance as well as meetings with older musicians, where they learn about their life stories, knowledge, and the contexts of oral tradition.

What does ACT do?

It currently co-organizes the Palheta Bendita festival with the Santo Tirso City Council, which will hold its 19th edition in 2025. The festival is a leading event in popular music, having become a meeting place for musicians from Portugal and Galicia; in addition to concerts, it hosts a fair featuring instrument makers from both sides of the border, as well as lectures and workshops dedicated to preserving the intangible cultural heritage related to musical instruments, dances, and songs of the Northwest Peninsula,

Various groups hold activities at the ACT facilities, including the Pantomina comedy marching band and the Chulada da Ponte Velha, Gaiteiros da Ponte Velha, Sanfonas da Ponte Velha, and Escola de Gaitas da Ponte Velha bands.

Recognizing the potential of inter-organizational synergies, ACT has regularly collaborated with other organizations on musical projects. Examples of this include the “Cancioneiro de Gaita-de-foles,” published in 2018 in partnership with the Portuguese Association for the Study and Promotion of the Bagpipes; the booklet “Simple Musical Instruments: Reed Wind Instruments,” published the same year in collaboration with Pédexumbo – Association for the Promotion of Music and Dance; the exhibition catalog “Instrumentos Populares do Noroeste Peninsular” in partnership with the Canto D’Aqui association for Braga, Capital of Culture of the Atlantic Axis 2020; and the film “As Cores da Água,” in partnership with Cardo Roxo, released in 2021. In addition, in 2021, he published the book “Os Zés Pereiras – A Musical Culture of the Entre Douro e Minho Region,” funded by the Directorate-General for the Arts.

Within this theme, ACT has two traveling exhibitions about the zés pereiras. One, titled “The Zés Pereiras of the Entre Douro e Minho Region,” and the other, titled “The Charanga Os Cinco Hermanos: Bagpipers from the Banks of the Minho,” organized with the support of the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation of the Minho River and in collaboration with Pédexumbo, Central Folque, and the Caminha City Council.

On the other hand, moving beyond the realm of traditional music, ACT organizes an annual concert series—X-ACT—featuring all genres of music.