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A BRIEF HISTORY
A society with a hundred years of history such as the “Ateneu Artístico Vilafranquense” has in its curriculum, naturally, innumerable events that defined and characterised the specific qualities that have been its social and cultural function, accompanied by times that were not without difficulties and sacrifices, but with sufficient commitment and effort to overcome these less favourable moments for more than a century of existence. A Portuguese century that lived through four essential moments: The Monarchy, the 1st Republic, the New State and the Democracy of the 3rd Republic and the era post 25th of April 1974. We are able equally to perceive this in the recreational witnesses of this society, in the cultural programmes that unites its associates and friends, in the members that have represented it throughout the years, in its Band of Music, in the successive generations of citizens of Vila Franca who are enthusiasts of this art of Euterpe that is music, in the concerts for the people, in the various initiatives that made permanent the flame of an idea, we see it there and in much more. We could say that this Society is a reflection of the cultural reality of an entire region and, particularly, of a locality such as Vila Franca de Xira, a place of real presence in the various phases that have made the history of these last two centuries in Portugal. The origin of this society can be found in the historical and chronological context of the second half of the 19th Century, in times fortuitous for various reasons to the proliferation of musical societies. It is thus that the genesis of the creation of the current Ateneu Artístico Vilafranquense may be witnessed in the initial effort of a popular music group very specific and characteristic of those times, the so-called “Grupo Ocarinista” founded in 1888 by Joaquim dos Reis Tralha, later one of the founders of “Fanfarra 1º de Maio” (Fanfare f the 1st of May). If the sound of the ocarinas could unite some of the men of this land in a greater passion for music, then with the harmony and vivacity that it provided, soon they could attempt to give substance to a project worthy and with greater possibilities of expansion, culturally and recreationally, converting into the “Fanfarra 1º de Maio” founded in 1891. In the following year the Fanfarra was presented to the Vila Franca public with sixteen performers, this number increasing in 1894 to twenty-seven musicians thus fulfilling the initial proposals. In keeping with the germinating republic the society would come, in 1906, to call itself “Grémio Popular Vilafranquense” (Popular Society of Vila France) and, few years later, would call itself inevitably the “Centro Eleitoral Republicano Vilafranquense” (Republican Electoral Centre of Vila France), maintaining throughout, the subtitle of “Fanfarra 1º de Maio”. But if these were times of union between political and cultural values, rapidly it was understood that such a connection could be prejudicial thus entering the society into a significant crisis, only overcome in 1916, with the formation of the “Grémio Artístico Vilafranquense” ( Artistic Society of Vila Franca), affirming itself as a society with the vigour necessary to ensure that there would never more be a lack of a musical group that gave pride to the people of Vila Franca giving a bandstand to the musical band. Names such as the previously referred to Joaquim dos Reis Tralha (who was, during long years conductor of the “Fanfarra 1º de Maio”), José Dias da Silva (principal mentor of the society during the troubled years of the 1st Repulic), the conductor and composer of the region Artur César Pereira or the Presidents and Directors Faustino de Sousa, Adriano Porfírio da Silva and Arnaldo Araújo, amongst others were certainly fundamental in the pursuit of the project initiated in 1891. After the affirmation of the “Grémio Artístico” through the twenties and thirties it would be now the decision of the decreed law 29.232 of 1938, artº11, that the society must alter its name, so as to avoid confusion with the “Grémios”, the corporate entities created then by the New State. It was thus that the Grémio gave place to the current designation of “Ateneu Artístico Vilafranquense”. From then until now the association has known inumerable and rich moments of cultural and asociative dedication, owing much to men such as Edmundo Duarte Moura, Carlos Alberto Rodrigues Pato, António Alves Redol, José Porfírio da Silva and Júlio Serra Sabino (all Directors), Alípio Sêco, Fiel Luís da Costa, António Amorim Pereira, Casimiro Silva, José Dias Montesinho, José Augusto Carneiro, Mário Marques, José Araújo Pereira, Carlos Gonçalves, João Lemos e Délio Gonçalves. (all conductors). On the 24 of April 1999, the Minister of Culture, Professor António Manuel Carrilho, awarded the Medal of Cultural Merit to this Society, in solemn session in the Noble Salon of the local government of Vila France de Xira, following a visit to the premises of the Ateneu Artístico Vilafranquense.
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