História e percurso do FEMACO através de seus repertórios

Abstract

The Maranhão Choir Festival (FEMACO) has brought great sociocultural influence to Maranhão music, thus contributing to the training of many professionals. Hence the need to scientifically understand its history through its musical repertoires throughout its 38 festival editions. Thus, we sought to address the importance of the choral conductor in choosing the musical repertoire, in addition to discussing choral singing and music as well as their main forms. We also addressed the importance of FEMACO for Maranhão musical culture. The research was developed through analysis of documentary and bibliographic sources, the Internet and interviews with its creators. This study is descriptive with a qualitative and quantitative approach. The documentary research was limited to the survey of printed materials contained in the Festival's own archive, held at the Federal University of Maranhão, such as posters and the schedule of events for each edition obtained through the Department of Cultural Affairs of UFMA (DAC), the department where all documents on cultural events produced by the Federal University of Maranhão are deposited. In this way, all concert programs from all editions of FEMACO were surveyed since the first edition, held in 1977. This allowed the digitalization of the material, which is now in better condition and easily accessible for future research. Thus, the Festival's programs and the records in local newspapers about it defined the meaning and importance that the Festival had, not only for the choral movement of Maranhão, but also in the social and musical life of its society. The results indicate a significant number of popular pieces arranged for choir, more than other styles