ECOS Residency 2025
Ensemble Criativo Outros Sons
Other Sounds Creative Ensemble
An Intensive Residential Course for Collaborative Music Making and Sound Art
in Moita, Castro Daire, Portugal
August 17 - August 23, 2025
We are excited to announce the launch of the ECOS (Other Sounds Creative Ensemble) Residency 2025 —a brand new spin-off of our iconic Other Lands Other Sounds programme.
In this six day residential course in rural Portugal, we invite you to become part of a unique community of musicians immersed in the holistic training of mind-body and collaborative music-making. Cultivate flow and presence. Enhance your flexibility and creative thinking. Create new music and foster new connections.
With a carefully curated programme of movement training, themed workshops, labs on improvisation and composition, and a range of creative commissions both for the whole ensemble and in smaller groups, the ECOS residency aims to shake up your musical habits, challenge your assumptions, and inspire new ways of creating.
Initially formed in Lisbon in 2023, ECOS offers a facilitated space for exploring devised and collaborative music-making, by bringing together a collective of advanced musicians (amateur, professional, and student) from diverse musical backgrounds to create new works of music and sound art.
Our new immersive 6 day residential course will provide an opportunity for an ensemble of 12 select musicians to dive deep into creative practice and collaborative music-making. The course will focus on developing three areas essential to a musicians’ practice;
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cultivating presence and flow through training the mind-body connection;
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unlocking creative thinking through improvisation and innovative musical processes;
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building skills in social practice, navigating group dynamics and diverse ways of thinking.
Hosted by a local arts centre in a quaint town of Moita in the hills outside of Viseu, Portugal, the ECOS Residency offers an intensive programme balanced between facilitated sessions and creative making. Mornings will begin with a daily movement practice, followed by themed workshops delivered by one of our three course leaders. Afternoons will be dedicated to improvisation, collaborative composition, and ensemble work. Facilitators will offer further support and mentoring to participants as new work is created, ultimately curating a public sharing for the village on the final evening. Throughout the week, we will be nourished by three meals a day prepared by our private chef, time off to rest and reflect in the afternoons, dips in the swimming pool, walks in the surrounding nature, and a variety of evening activities.
"I don't think there are many residencies that are run in this way, where art, the body and human relationships are equally important."
- LIZ, Violinist
The Programme
At Curiosa, we bring people together to create temporary communities based on play, inclusivity, curiosity, and creativity. Away from the distractions of normal life, we hold a carefully curated space in which we imagine into being a world where people can be themselves, inspire each other, and learn from one another. We see every moment as an opportunity to practice noticing, listening, and transforming experience into art.
Before breakfast
Movement Training
A daily regimen of functional movement to warm up and attune the mind-body connection. Sessions may draw on everything from authentic movement and yoga, to contact improv and meditation.
Themed Workshop with Kate Smith
Deep Listening
This workshop will suggest creative ways to listen closely to self and other, revealing new modes of relationality and presence. Through an embodied lens combining somatic exercises, gentle movement, and intuitive voicework, we will cultivate the practice of “being-with”, enhancing our awareness of silence and sound, doing and being.
Afternoons
Improvisation & Composition Sessions (Whole Group and Small Ensembles)
Balanced between whole group composition sessions and small ensemble creative tasks, these sessions will introduce participants to a responsive set of creative strategies for working outside of the standard confines of composing, improvising or generating music. Our emphasis will lie on building collaborative skills, taking inspiration from a broad range of cross-disciplinary sources and creating music quickly in flow.
Themed Workshop with Filipe Sousa
Flow and Flexibility
A dynamic workshop on the physical, mental and musical attitude of awareness - to sound, to the relationship with your instrument and to our fellow musicians. Through play, musical group exercises, movement, and interaction, we will develop greater physical and musical presence, enhancing responsiveness, phrasing, detail and ensemble cohesion.
Themed Workshop with Henrique Apolinário
Deconstructing Musical Vocabulary
We will revise the conceptual foundations that traditionally underpin musical thinking to take a more experiential approach to musical building blocks. We will rethink traditional ways of transmitting sound, breaking down our musical vocabulary, expanding our references, and exploring extremes.
After lunch and after dinner
Free Time
The hours after lunch will be unscheduled to allow time for rest and reflection, swimming in the pool or going on nature walks. Evenings will offer lightly organized activities, or you can decide to do whatever suits you, like hanging out in the cafe in town or jamming late into the night. Or you can use the time to continue creating, it’s up to you!
Who is this residency for?
We are looking for experienced instrumentalists and vocalists from diverse musical/cultural/educational backgrounds who want to engage with fresh perspectives on music-making in an open-minded environment that welcomes experimentation and creative thinking.
You may be an orchestral musician, or maybe you trained in non-Western traditions, you may be a student at music school, or maybe you’re a passionate amateur. We are interested in how to collaborate across difference and welcome you.
Experience in writing music or improvising is not required, but an openness to working collaboratively in a group is essential.
"New themes have emerged, new techniques, and a general feeling of freedom and play has manifested."
- HANNAH, multi-disciplinary artist
Meet Your Facilitators
Filipe Sousa (PT, piano)
Filipe Sousa is a pianist, composer, and workshop leader known for his collaborative and participatory projects.
Filipe collaborates with artists and communities of diverse ages, abilities, and backgrounds. He uses music and sound as tools to bring people and ideas together, forming bridges between art forms and cultures.
With a background in architecture and movement practices, he integrates concepts of space and movement into his work, often focusing on active listening, immersive sound environments and performance experiences.
He composes music for theatre, film, dance, and ensembles, and has worked with prominent institutions like the Barbican Centre, CCB Lisbon, Projeto Guri, Sinfonia Viva, London Contemporary Orchestra, Lutolawski Youth Orchestra, Jeunesses Musicales and the International Music Council.
Filipe co-founded the contemporary classical piano trio Quest Ensemble and has taught at Trinity Laban Conservatoire and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is currently the artistic director at Skoola in Lisbon.
Kate Smith (UK, Voice)
Kate Smith is a vocal acrobat, composer, and facilitator known for her seamless blend of musical precision, free improvisation and physical exploration. As the creator of The Embodied Voice©, a research, performance and teaching practice, Kate’s many-faceted creative endeavors address themes of presence, the body-mind relationship, and human rewilding, through the expressive shaping of voice, movement and improvisation.
Kate’s work as a composer exists in both realms of live theatre and recorded sound. In October 2023, she released her debut EP, Songs from the Body, a series of compositions for voice and electronics, paired with immersive live performances involving up to 12 singers, movement and synth, including for Yolk Collective (London), Isodea Festival (Barreiro), Voz Unbound (Lisbon) and Songs from the Body (London). She has been commissioned to write sound pieces for Whitechapel Gallery and Fundação Eugenio de Almeida, and her music can be found in the documentary The Hypocrite (2024).
An accomplished improviser, Kate has released several albums of collaborative vocal improvisation including with Anthropos, Oöm, and Remembering. She is one of the creators of UK Vocal Improv (2022-2024), organizing and teaching on multiple festivals and retreats. As Director of THAT! Ensemble (2017-2020), she created improvisational voice and movement pieces for Hundred Years Gallery, the Barbican, TATE Exchange, The London Charterhouse, and more.
www.KateSmithMusic.com
Songs from the Body
Henrique Apolinario (PT, electronics)
Henrique has been working in music and performance since 2014. Having studied classical violin since a very young age and later graduating in Theatre in college, he has henceforth directed and participated in numerous projects involving several ensembles, collectives and solo works. His works span across multiple genres and propositions, from which can be highlighted: Sound Design and live performance for Theatre companies Teatro do Frio, Uma and Acendalha, in the shows “Eco”, “Distância de Segurança” , “Gyrovagus” and “Roda Baixa”.
Most of his original creations and releases delve in electro-acoustic music and electronic music, always with a focus in physical engagement and deep listening principles, with highlights: “Zancudo Berraco” an explosive solo experimental techno live set, “Ensemble Quiromático” a experimental string Ensemble, “Fusão” a power ambient solo album and show, “Cavalo na Caixa” a cross disciplinary performance and album, and “Qir Alin” de dconsctructed club and dissident dj alias of Apolinário.
Henrique is now mostly focused in artistic direction of cultural creations, music creation and performance, and the managing of a rural based cultural development project, Acendalha. Henrique has been thoroughly focused in breaking boundaries in electronic music explorations, either through his flagship live set “Zancudo Berraco”, in producing and Djing with the alias Qir Alin, or in event curating and promoting across the portuguese under and overground.
Soundcloud
Terra Incógnita
"I felt welcome to show up as I am and experiment, to be curious and vulnerable"
- ANNIE, movement artist
- ANNIE
Moita, Castro Daire
GRUPO EXPERIMENTAL DE INTERVENÇÃO CULTURAL (GEIC)
We are excited to be partnering with GEIC, an association for the promotion of artists, founded in Lisbon in 1990. Over the years GEIC has organized art and photography exhibitions; book and magazine editions; video shows; musical projects and soundtracks, and more.
We will be hosted by GEIC at their space, Serra Centro D'Artes. located in the village of Moita in the district of Viseu. For almost twenty years, GEIC has organized an annual festival of art and music in Moita, called MOITAMOSTRA.
Moita, Castro Daire
We will be living and working in the tiny village of Moita, near the town of Castro Daire. An area once occupied by the Romans, it is a pastoral site north of Viseu, about 1.5 hours drive from South Porto, and 3.5 hours drive north from Lisbon.
The area is known for it's rivers and waterfalls. There is one cafe and one restaurant in the town, so prepare to get to know the locals!
There is no public transport in the village and it is about 30 km from Viseu and 17 km from Castro Daire.
Accommodation
Casa da Fontinha
A little more than half our number will be housed at Casa da Fontinha, an old stone house owned by the founder of the Serra Centro D'Artes. It is about a 10 minute walk through the fields to the arts center where we will be working during the day, and within a 4 minute walk of the village cafe.
Room Options
Casal
Casa da Fontinha
Double bed with private WC
For one person, or a couple
White
Casa da Fontinha
Twin room with shared WC
Two single beds
Blue
Casa da Fontinha
Twin room with private WC
Two single beds
Red
Casa da Fontinha
Twin room with shared WC
Two single beds
Serra Centro D'Artes
A little less than half our number will be staying at Serra Centro das Artes, the arts centre that will also be the site of our work during the day. The arts centre has five rooms with between 2-3 single and/or double beds in each. Bathrooms are shared, and there is a small kitchen, and easy access to the swimming pool next door!
Dorms
Serra Centro D'Artes
Twin room with shared WC
Two single beds
Meals
All of our meals will be prepared by a private chef using locally sourced vegetarian ingredients. Breakfasts will be self serve from a buffet. You can purchase alcohol and ice creams at the local cafe or the town's restaurant. For more significant grocery shops, you'll need to drive to the nearest town, about 10 minutes by car. There is one small restaurant if you'd like to eat out and sample local Portuguese fare, as well as more food options in other nearby villages.
"I was blown away by the expertise and commitment of the leaders and the way they supported our process."
- JOSH, singer-songwriter
Investment
What's included
Daily workshops, mentoring, and support from our three course leaders, Filipe Sousa, Kate Smith, and Henrique Apolinário
Sound equipment, sound engineering support, and workshop spaces
Lodging for 6 nights, including linens and towels
All meals including breakfasts, lunches, and dinners
What's not included
Travel to and from Moita, Castro Daire
Alcohol, ice creams, extra groceries or snacks
SPACE
TUITION
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FOOD
ACCOMMODATION
Save €200!
Book before May 30th
to secure the
Early Bird Discount - €200 off!
Booking Terms
To join the residency, first fill out the application form below. You will received confirmstion of receipt, after which we will respond with your application decision within two weeks, if not sooner.
Once you are accepted onto the course, you must send in a €250 deposit to reserve your space. Until we have received your deposit, your spot will not be confirmed.
Full payment of remaining fee is due by June 27th. If you will need to pay in installments, please let us know and we will work out a flexible payment plan.
Please note, your deposit is non-refundable. However, if you find someone who is able to take your place on the residency (pending application), then you can transfer your payment into their name.
If you need to cancel and withdraw from the course before July 4th, 2025, then you will receive a 50% refund (minus admin and bank charges). After that date, we can not refund your course fee.
If we have to cancel the residency for whatever reason, we will refund you your full payment.
Work Study
In order to enable access to this course, we are opening up 5 work-exchange positions, in return for a reduced price of only 445€.
To counter rising inequality in Portugal, we are committed to offering three of these work-exchange positions to Portuguese individuals living on a typical Portuguese salary.
If you are interested in securing one of the positions, please fill out the last few questions in the below application form. Please only apply if you would otherwise be unable to financially afford the course. We recommend having a look at this Green Bottle graphic to understand where you fall on the scale of access.
Tech Assistant
Helping to connect the sound systems, manage the instruments
Videography
Capture video of the course and edit a 1.5minute after movie
Cooking Assistant (x2)
The two cooking assistants will take turns assisting our chef to prepare lunches and dinners, mostly prepping ingredients and helping to transport food
Photography
Capture photos of the course
APPLY
We accept applications on a rolling basis. However, spaces are limited so we recommend you apply as soon as possible.
The Early Bird deadline is May 30th.
To apply, please fill out the simple form below.