March 2011 - World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles

União Filarmónica do Troviscal
History and Philosophy
The first band that existed in Troviscal was
founded in 1911 by an elementary school
teacher, José de Oliveira Pinto de Sousa, that
taught the regular school syllabus in the
morning and music in the afternoon to all of
his students. The “Banda Escolar do
Troviscal” (Troviscal School Band) became
famous nationwide due to a serious dispute
that the band maintained with a, at the time,
tyrant catholic church, that ended with the
band’s excommunication, by the Bishop of
Coimbra, in 1922. The Band’s reputation
was not only the result of this 17 years
lasting dispute but also due to its artistic
merit, tested over several band competitions,
which led many people to consider it one of
the top bands in the country. Regrettably the
band was declared extinct in 1942.
In 1989 a group of local personalities
decided to join hands and invited Professor
Silas de Oliveira Granjo, grandchild of José
de Oliveira, college teacher and amateur
band conductor; to establish a non-profit
society that would work towards restoring
the tradition and carry on the legacy left by
the “Banda Escolar do Troviscal”. This
challenge was accepted and in September of
1989 a group of young children between 6
and 14 started to learn music. In December
of this year it was already possible to listen
to 23 of these students performing three
Christmas melodies on wind instruments.
The roots where launched and the band,
now called “União Filarmónica do Troviscal”
began its regular activity, as any other
community Wind Band in Portugal. The goal
of the band was always to perform the best
possible repertoire that the musicians
technical abilities where able to grasp while
pushing the limits in a pedagogical and
artistic effort to evolve. While maintaining
the tradition of outdoor performances
expected of a community band in our
country (parades, religious processions,
The Band in its own Iberian Band Festival in 2010.
outdoor concerts, etc.) the band soon aimed
at more artistically oriented targets and in
1998 decided to participate in the
Purmerade festival for young musicians in
Purmetend – Netherlands. In this festival the
band received appreciations of “good” and
“very good” in all parameters analyzed by
the jury and obtained a 1 st prize with honors
in the soloists contest. At a national level the
band received the government recognition
for its work and was awarded the title of
“Institution of Public Merit” in 2000. In
March 2001 the band toured France playing
in Paris and Strasbourg at the European
Parliament, in August played in Spain in a
Youth Band’s Festival in Galicia and in
October traveled again to France to perform
in several cities of the Brittany region. In
2002 the band participated again in the
Purmerade Festival and this time was
classified with “excellent” in all the analyzed
parameters by all of the judges and was thus
awarded the prize of best Concert Band of
the festival and also received two first prizes
with honors (trumpet and saxophone) and
two first prizes (flute and clarinet) in the
soloists contest.
In June 2004 the band represented
Portugal in the International Band Festival
FIJO in the Czech city of Cheb. In the
following years the band took part in several
band festivals and concerts in Portugal and
Spain and kept its own Iberian Band Festival,
organized every March since 2002. The last
big achievement of the band was in April
2008 when the band won the 1 st Prize in the
“IIº Certâmen Internacional de Bandas de La
Senia” in Spain.
Being this the first time a Portuguese Band
performing at an international event of this
level, and taking into consideration one of
the goals of WASBE, which is to promote the
exchange of repertoire from all over the
world, the program we propose aims at
showing our colleagues and audience the
Wind Band music tradition of our country.
Andre Granjo (conductor)
Got his first experience playing clarinet in
a band at the age of 8, in the Banda Filarmonica
da Mamarrosa, after taking lessons
with his father, Silas Granjo, and with the
»dean« of the band Alvaro Ferreira. Went on
to study clarinet at the Conservatories of
Aveiro and Coimbra with Professors
Fernando Rainho and Adelino Martins. Took
a degree in anthropology and later a postgraduation
in musicology at the University of
Coimbra. Got his master in Wind Band
conducting with Jan Cober at the Zuid
Nederlandse Hogeschool voor Muziek
(Maastricht) in 2005. Since 1994 he
conducts the University of Coimbra
Chamber Orchestra and in 1995 founded
the Jazz Band of the university. Since 2001
he conducts the »União Filarmónica do
Troviscal« with whom he won two international
prizes: Purmerade 2002 (Holland)
and “II Certamen Internacional de Bandes
Vila De La Senia” (Spain). He has appeared
as guest conductor with different ensembles
in Portugal, Spain, France, Holland,
Colombia, Costa Rica and USA. Currently
works on his PhD, with a scholarship of the
Portuguese Foundation for Science and
Technology, at the University of Coimbra
with Professors Jose Maria Cardoso and
Christopher Bochmann and with the support
of Mark Heron and Clark Rundell at the
RNCM and Eugene Migliaro Corporon at
North-Texas University where he is “visiting
scholar” at the Wind Studies Department.
He is a member of the Portuguese Ethnomusicology
Institute (INET-MD), teaches
Wind Band conducting and Portuguese
Wind Literature at the Portuguese Piaget
Institutes of Almada and Viseu and is a
member of the national jury for the Annual
Music Projects of the Ministry of Culture. He
regularly presents lectures on several aspects
wind music in Portugal, from history and
sociology to repertoire aesthetics, and has
given clinics on Portuguese Wind Music at
international meetings such as the BASBWE
2007 Conference in Glasgow, the 2009
WASBE Conference in Cincinnati and IGEB
2010 conference in Oberschützen.
WASBE World 15