Testimonials

The Opinion of Several Personalities About Our Festival

16 Jul
2022

Congratulations! It's marvellous to have a festival with this longevity and we artists have to be grateful for finding people with the will to do this work, not once, but every year for thirty years!

Maria Jonas
Mezzo-soprano and director of Ars Choralis Coeln

16 Jul
2022

Congratulations to the Cistermúsica team for having managed to survive 30 years in a cultural sector that isn't easy, but whose pleasure and rewards are enormous. I hope they continue for many years to come!

Dirk Fassbender
International Piano Week of Óbidos

16 Jul
2022

Here's to another 30 years of Cistermúsica! I've been coming here for many years and I've experienced some absolutely extraordinary concerts.

João Chambers
Author/director at RDP Antena 2

30 Jul
2021

Bravo to the Festival and the city! This place is marvellous, we had a very beautiful evening here.

John Hodian
Musician and musical director of The Naghash Ensemble

30 Jul
2021

It was a pleasure to return, this time with the honour of reading poems at The Naghash Ensemble concert. It was a beautiful concert, with a transcendental dimension! I always applaud the Festival, it's marvellous to see art in the Western region.

Sónia Balacó
Actress and Poet

11 Jul
2021

The concert we brought reminded me of how, at the time, the Monastery of Alcobaça was a kind of patron of culture, spreading polyphonic music to the monasteries that depended on it throughout the country. And it's what Cistermúsica does today too!

Tiago Mota
Alma Ensemble Musician

01 Aug
2021

We thank the Cistermúsica Festival for allowing us to listen to music from other times, other places, which brings us closer to other cultural worlds.

Marta Betanzos Roig
Spanish Ambassador to Portugal

22 Jul
2021

Cistermúsica is a festival that should be known by more people, with a quality that is unusual in small towns, held in a marvellous location and from which we always come away more enriched.

José Amaral Lopes
Former Secretary of State for Culture

31 Aug
2020

Congratulations on a successful festival this year, in especially difficult conditions, and I hope we can see each other again in 2021!

Gustavo Sacadura Botte
Spectator

31 Aug
2020

I wish you much success as it is well deserved.

Sandra Almeida
Spectator

30 Aug
2020

Cistermúsica helps overcome fear. It presents the city (hungry for culture) with a programme that makes us breathe the beneficial air of music.

Fernando Ribeiro
Moonspell

20 Aug
2020

The Festival has proved that, especially in uncertain times, it is with music that we can approach the divine and aspire to achieve something more than mere matter (...).

Susana Santos
El Corte Inglés Director of Communication

16 Aug
2020

DGPC could not be more pleased with this 28th edition of the Festival, which continues to be of absolute excellence, on the scale of the monument that hosts it. (...) It was a great joy for us to be able to hold the Festival in 2020.

Ana Pagará
Director of the Monastery of Alcobaça / DGPC

16 Aug
2020

I'm glad the organisation decided to carry out the festival, it would have been a huge loss not to have done it this year.

Américo Rodrigues
Director-General for the Arts