Cante: The Chant of Voices
(Popular Choral Music from the Baixo Alentejo Region)
52’15”

Synopsis

In the south of Portugal, in the lowlands of the Alentejo region, between the Serra de Portel and the mountains of the Algarve, there exists a unique and deeply rooted form of singing that has become the soul of the territory: cante alentejano.

Cante alentejano, or chant of voices, has origins still shrouded in debate. Some trace it to Christian traditions—Byzantine, perhaps, or brought from the Minho region, shaped in monastic cloisters. Others claim Berber roots, a lingering echo of the Moors expelled during the Reconquista. And there are those who believe it was born solely here, shaped by the land itself and by the men who turned forest into open plain—a deep expression of the vast, solitary landscape that calls men to come together and sing. As the poet once said, “I have never seen an Alentejano sing alone.”

Today, Cante lives both within and beyond the Alentejo. It has followed the men in their diaspora—an echo of home, a final root for those who may never return to the land they left behind.

For the Alentejano, Cante is more than music. It is a homeland—the land they may never have truly possessed, yet always carry. History may attempt to trace its origin, but it will never fully grasp the dreamlike truth: that to sing anywhere is still, somehow, to be in Alentejo.