European festivals Association

Organised by ABA – Banda de Alcobaça, Associação de Artes, with the institutional support of the Municipality of Alcobaça and the Portuguese Directorate-General for the Arts, Cistermúsica provides a cultural programme of excellence, decentralised and accessible, with some of the best music and dance interpreters, on the national and international scene.

Over the course of 30 years, the festival has had as its mission the development of new audiences for music, and for the arts in general, as well as the enhancement of heritage, not only the musical and immaterial, but also the architectural historic heritage, whose fruition and public knowledge has driven.

The connection to heritage is immediately evident in the designation of the festival, which refers to the Cistercian heritage and the stages where it is presented, whose epicenter is the Monastery of Alcobaça and its multiplicity of spaces, some of which are only accessible to the public on this occasion.

In recent years, Cistermúsica has evolved into a Season, maintaining the Festival as the highlight of the programme in the summer, but filling out the year-round offer with artistic proposals. Currently, the Cistermúsica Season includes other events on the calendar, such as Cistermúsica Sacra, which takes place during the Easter period and focuses on choral music, and Cistermúsica Fronteiras, a contemporary music series that takes place in the last quarter of the year.