Semibreve

Semibreve is a festival that leans into collaboration and experimental sonics. Though it’s not marketed as a design event, the architecture of the city plays a large role, hosting site-specific works across unique locations.

Chosen for: Innovation.

Experimental music is often marketed as esoteric, catering to a tapped-in audience of music fans. At Semibreve, the ‘experimental’ umbrella encompasses a wide, unpredictable range of sounds, and a large audience fills the seats of the grand Theatro Circo in the search for something new. Here, experimental music doesn’t seem to cater to a small market, but rather, the music scene of Braga itself and attendees who’ve travelled from its neighbouring areas.

Most of the programme is made up of exclusive, site-specific works, and the results are often thrilling and intriguing at once. It’s here that you can experience a one-off collaboration between Laurel Halo and Oliver Coates, and the performance feels less esoteric than their precursors but nonetheless is a wonderful performance. At Semibreve, you can meditate to the sounds of Flora Yin-Wong in a modern church, sit in near-pitch-black darkness listening to Supersilent or exploratory theremin music in a Portuguese revivalist theatre.

Though the event doesn’t market itself as a design festival, part of what makes Semibreve feel like a one-of-a-kind experience is the marriage of the city’s architecture and sounds. The identity of Braga is rooted in its historical buildings and contemporary venues, such as the arts space gnration. Semibreve not only provides festival-goers with a wide-ranging musical programme year on year, but also a tour of Braga’s most intriguing spaces. It manages to maintain a largely local feel amongst the audience – despite bringing in international acts – and remains a hidden gem placed just off the summer festival circuit, usually hosting its editions in October.

Semibreve takes place across various venues in Braga, Portugal. Dates are yet to be announced.