Museum

Long-standing testimonies of a remarkable philharmonic movement, of artistic devotion and auspicious amateur musical practice, the Philharmonic Bands constitute a pre-eminent legacy in Madeiran musical culture. Heirs of the musical activity and the “symbolic” and “recreational” functions of “loud music”, of the charamelas and percussion suits that for at least three centuries animated the civic and religious festivities, and of the regimental bands that were headquartered and highlighted for the region in the nineteenth century, the philharmonic bands of community and corporate character Madeiran were formally constituted since the middle of that century, several of them maintained a continuous musical activity and played a seminal, gratuitous and profitable contribution to the artistic formation of its performers and associates. In the centuries-old musical institutions, many of the renowned regional musicians began their work with their teachers, conductors/maestros, directors, performers and associates and sympathizers, and many others who embarked on a career as an interpreter or educator in that artistic field and the most competent amateurs of music, which, year after year, still guarantee the apparatus of civic ceremonies and recreation of Madeiran society.