There are life stories of the people of the Algarve mountains that are not told in any song, nor in traditional tales, but which are testimonies of the often hard day-to-day of the “serranos”. The Moçoilas want to take these stories of life and experiences that are repeated in various parts of the interior of the Algarve, set them to music and include them in their already vast repertoire, which includes the traditional songs of the region, but also rhymes, tongue twisters and dances.
Margarida Guerreiro, Teresa da Silva and Inês Rosa, the three elements of the Moçoilas, have been walking in the mountains and did not hide their desire to transform stories of the mountains into songs, in the conversation they had with the Sul Informação and with Rádio Universitária do Algarve RUA FM (102.7 FM), as guests of the Impressions program.
The Moçoilas project was created over 20 years ago to preserve and publicize a cultural heritage that was in danger of extinction. But, in their long journey, the Moçoilas have never been afraid to go beyond the borders of the region and traditional music, making “their” songs by other artists, namely «Amélia Muge, José Mário Branco, Sérgio Godinho, Zeca Afonso and Teresa Muge».
«We listened to songs by other artists and said: look how cool! How about making it Moçoila? We also have such a challenge in our hands. We have to make fado “amoçailado” and we still don't know how to do it (laughs)», illustrated Margarida Guerreiro. Basically, it's about giving “a serrano stamp to songs that are not from the mountains”.
Now, they want to go a step further, taking advantage of the pearls they bring from the interior of the Algarve, in his many trips to the mountains.
“We learned a lot of things, but essentially people's stories. And there are incredible stories, especially of women who have never left the same place and come to say: “look, I was born there, then I got married and went there – on the same hill. Then I took care of this one and that one, the children came and went, the husband too. And I am. Now, what I most want in life is to die here”. These stories hurt a lot, I don't know how to explain what they provoke me, but they provoke something in me,” said Margarida Guerreiro.
The Algarve musical trio is already “working” to make a song from scratch to add to their repertoire. An experience that will not be completely new for the Moçoilas, who recently accepted a challenge from ACTA - The Algarve Theater Company to make music for a play.
“Our collaboration with ACTA was something very different from what we had done so far. Because it's one thing to sing songs that already existed, it's another to do it again. We received an invitation to set music for three moments of a play they were going to do, whose text was by Jacinto Lucas Pires. The show was about the history of Catarina Eufémia», said Inês Rosa.
“We had never done that, we hadn't had the experience of creating all three from scratch. And it took a long time. From the outset, because we were not aware of the time it took to compose and because we did it together. It wasn't someone who grabbed and built. The first thing we did was grab a tape recorder and sing, sing and sing (laughs)», he added.
This first session resulted in 40 minutes of sounds, which were later cut. «The problem is that we liked everything…(laughs)».
“Another problem was that when we recorded it, it wasn't with the text and we needed to fit it into the music. And the metric of the text wasn't exactly very easy», they continue, with the good disposition that is characteristic of them.
In the end, ACTA won original songs for its production and the Moçoilas developed “an appetite” for the creative process.
For now, there is no idea when the next Moçoilas album will come out. What is certain is that Inês Rosa, Teresa da Silva and Margarida Guerreiro will continue to come together and keep alive the memories and traditions of the Algarve mountains.
Anyone who wants to listen to the Moçoilas can do so on Friday, July 13th, at 21 pm, at the Feira Popular de Loulé, which takes place in Largo do Tribunal, in that city.
Listen to the interview of Moçoilas to the program Impressões in full:
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