“A ArtEduca was founded 20 years ago, yet there is a story before the story,” said director Margarida Gomes, the eldest sibling, who plays the violin. She spoke alongside her youngest brother, Pedro Gomes, a pianist. The siblings include Elisabete (violin), Natália (viola), and Fernando (cello).
The Gomes Quintet, comprised of musicians with national and international careers and sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Ministry of Culture, is set to perform on Sunday at 6 p.m. at the Casa das Artes de Famalicão, in the Braga district of Portugal. Famalicão is where the “story before the story” began, thanks to their father Carlos Gomes’s “highly enterprising spirit,” their mother Mercedes Carvalho’s “discreet yet vital support,” and a “rare and perhaps unique” commission that the siblings say determined their family’s future.
“Many decades ago, our father commissioned a string quartet [two violins, a viola, and a cello] from master luthier António Capela, known worldwide. It was a visionary gesture, one that defined our destiny, culminating in the show ‘The Creation,’ celebrating music, family, and the creative power spanning generations, a sort of giving back,” explained violinist Margarida Gomes.
“Giving back to our parents and the community,” added Pedro Gomes, the pianist who transformed the “quartet into a quintet.”
“The Creation” will also feature clarinetist Jordi Pons, pianist Bruno Gomes Ferreira, and young dancers Joel and Lara Pons Gomes, grandchildren of the “visionary” Carlos Gomes, a history professor who, driven by his deep love for music, opened an instrument store and a small school many decades ago.
The Chamber Choir and the ArtEduca Faculty Ensemble will complete the concert lineup, which includes works by Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Bruch, and Schumann, among others.
“The Creation is more than a concert title. It is the symbol of a living continuity,” reads the event description. The siblings said it will be “a concert to celebrate 20 years of creation, teaching, and love for art.”
“ArtEduca is a music conservatory where we’ve brought to the community what we gained from countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, and England,” noted Pedro Gomes, who has recently returned to Famalicão to teach piano.
He added, “Regardless of whether the students pursue music, we provide them something else, an experience. Music opens a dimension that is greatly needed. It’s incomparable to other extracurricular activities. It’s not more important, but I believe music should be alongside Portuguese and mathematics.”
The director of the school, founded in 2005 by the Gomes family and “some good friends,” added that ArtEduca survived and thrived over 20 years because “it surely has something different.”
“At ArtEduca, an official conservatory recognized by the ministry, we don’t give up on our familial character. Parents who choose ArtEduca seek individualized teaching with a focus on the child. This isn’t an after-school care, and the familial feeling permeates the entire institution,” she described.
Currently boasting over 300 students, nearly quadruple its initial count, ArtEduca offers everything from activities for babies to courses up to the 9th grade.
The founders admitted the institution is “bursting at the seams,” appealing to patrons and art lovers to join their dream of providing ArtEduca with an auditorium that would allow it to “maintain its creative strength” and uphold its motto: “With music, we build people.”
“This need is no longer just for performances; it’s essential for teaching and progressing. Spaces are loaned to us, but the logistics are overwhelming, a madness only taken on by those passionate about music. We constantly create new projects, undertake major productions, and transport grand pianos across locations… This leap is truly vital. It’s no exaggeration. Realizing this dream would be just for the team, for the project, for what we offer,” concluded Margarida Gomes.
The project was presented in May to the Famalicão City Council, which “showed willingness to support,” expressed Margarida Gomes, encouraged by the school’s long-standing “loving and harmonious relationship with the community.”
