Paula Pereira

Paula Pereira holds a Master’s degree in Musical Sciences – Ethnomusicology from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade Nova de Lisboa with the thesis ‘Fátima and Jasna Góra: popular sacred music and pioneering international influence in Europe’. She was an Erasmus+ scholar at the Jasna Góra Monastery in Czestochowa (Poland) during 2022. She also has a degree in Community Music from the Lisbon School of Education and the Lisbon School of Music. She has also studied choral conducting and organ at the Lisbon Diocesan School of Sacred Music and choral conducting at the National Service of Sacred Music. She studied singing with Prof Manuela de Sá and collaborated with vocal groups directed by Maria Amélia Abreu, Armindo Borges, Edgar Saramago and Andrew Swinnerton, among others. She was a music teacher at Colégio de São Tomás and Escola Ave-Maria. She has taken part in various workshops on choral conducting, Gregorian chant and vocal technique for adults and children. She has collaborated with the Sacred Music Service of Santa Maria de Belém (Jerónimos Monastery) as a soloist and member of the resident choir. For more than three decades, he has collaborated with the Parish of S. Pedro de Alverca, where he has dynamised the most diverse choral formations. Her experience conducting children’s choirs includes the Pueri Cantorum choir, which she founded and directed until 2016. Between 2016 and 2021, she was soloist and choir director at the Sanctuary of Fátima and was also in charge of the artistic direction of the Schola Cantorum Pastorinhos de Fátima, with which she gave numerous concerts throughout the country. He regularly participates in congresses and conferences on Music Education, Musicology and Ethnomusicology. She teaches Music and Music Education, directs a parish choir and dedicates herself with special affection to music sessions with the elderly, people with dementia and deaf children and/or those with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Supervisor Maria de São José Côrte-Real

Abstract

This research project aims to explore the impact of popular sacred music in rural Portuguese Marian shrines, with a focus on elements of community participation, musical repertoire, performance and potential for internationalisation. The research focuses on significant Marian shrines – Senhora da Peneda, Senhora da Lapa, Senhora do Almortão, Senhora de Aires and Senhora da Assunção – covering a wide geographical and cultural range. The analysis will delve into musical practices and their intercultural dynamics, considering the influence of glocal factors on devotional music. Anchored in concepts from ethnomusicology and interculturality studies, the project uses methodologies such as participant observation, quantitative and qualitative data collection and comparative analysis. It is hoped that the study will contribute to a broader understanding of the role of shrines in preserving and adapting musical traditions and promoting cultural and religious values in a rural context. The result will include the creation of an Annotated Rural Marian Songbook and practical recommendations for valorising the musical heritage of shrines, with a view to strengthening them as spaces for cultural and religious expression.

Keywords: Popular sacred music; Mariofania; Interculturality and migration; Internationalisation; Rural Portugal; Performance; the role of women in the Catholic religion.