ABSTRACT
In provincial Portugal in the 21st century, non-professional musical formations are at the center of local musical life, working toward the sustainability and unity of the local cultural social life and the natural place. This ethnomusicological study focuses on the Orfeão da Covilhã, a one-hundred-year-old choral group in order to understanding its structured sonic undertakings, which involve many people in the preparation and presentation of music over long periods of time. Musicking in the Orfeão da Covilhã is an ongoing dialogue and coexistence within a coherent whole, linking the individual to society, the local to the translocal, and the present to the future.
