25 July - Saturday

Sines

Unsafe Space Garden (Portugal)

Sines - Castelo | 18h00 | Free admission

A band from Guimarães whose first inspiration was the iconoclastic Frank Zappa. The musical garden they have been cultivating since 2019 is “unsafe” because their aim is to throw the audience off balance. Their existential protest draws on “the ingredients of humour, energy, colour, absurdity, chaos and intimacy” to create a confusion that turns into exhilaration. A children’s garden, but with an adult consciousness: each of us bears the responsibility, and the ability, to welcome and protect what is new and different. A challenging concert in Portuguese and English, with synthesisers, guitar solos, spoken word and a stage that is anything but monotonous.

Vitorino Salomé (Portugal)

Sines - Castelo | 21h00 | Buy ticket

Born in 1942 in Redondo into a family of musicians, an Alentejan of the world, lover of all the arts, bohemian and forever contemporary, Vitorino Salomé stands among the great names of Portuguese traditional-rooted music. Sixteen years have passed since the only time he appeared on an FMM stage, on a late afternoon in 2010, accompanied by his brother Janita and the Grupo de Cantadores de Redondo. Returning now to open the festival’s final night, he once again brings the Cantadores with him to celebrate Alentejo and the 50th anniversary of his debut album, “Semear Salsa no Reguinho”, first released in 1975 and re-recorded in 2025 with younger voices and companions from along the journey. It is an honour, Vitorino.

Le Trio Joubran “20 Springs” (Palestine)

Sines - Castelo | 22h15 | Buy ticket

The third appearance of Le Trio Joubran in Sines, and the first in this format. Samir, Wissam and Adnan, descendants of a family with four generations of oud makers and performers, return to the Castle with a concert conceived to celebrate their 20th anniversary in 2025. They arrive accompanied by a string quartet, percussion and the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish. They premiered this project at the Philharmonie de Paris, where they received the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture. 20 Springs treats each year of their career as a new spring, a new beginning. It is that message of renewal - in other words, hope - that their music conveys.

Nana Benz du Togo (Togo)

Sines - Castelo | 23h30 | Buy ticket

The name comes from the true story of a group of Togolese businesswomen who became millionaires. The Mercedes-Benz cars they bought with the profits from their printed fabrics became symbols of female success and the inspiration for this quintet, who honour them through the name they adopted. The sound of Nana Benz du Togo is complex, yet made for dancing. Their music brings together scales from vodun tradition, voices singing in the Mina language, a vintage Korg keyboard, percussion and the improvised bass instrument known as the gazé tuyau, made from PVC pipes. “Sé Nam”, their 2025 album recorded at the OTODI studio in Lomé, takes us simultaneously into the past and the future.

Orquesta Akokán (Cuba / USA)

Sines - Castelo | 00h45 | Buy ticket

Akokán is a word of Yoruba origin used in Cuba to describe something that comes “from the heart”. It was out of love for Cuban music that two Americans - producer and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Plasse, and arranger Michael Eckroth - decided to embark on this project, inviting a selection of Havana’s finest musicians to bring it to life. Since 2018, Orquesta Akokán has devoted itself to renewing mambo, inspired by the genre’s golden age in the 1940s and 1950s. With three albums released and a fourth promised for this year, they have received a Grammy nomination and several of the leading awards in Latin music. Cuban warmth for the Castle’s farewell.

KONONO Nº1 x Montparnasse Musique (DR Congo / France)

Sines - Galp Stage @ Av. Vasco da Gama | 02h15 | Free admission

After several years of silence, Konono Nº1 returns to the stages, and to Sines. Following appearances in 2005, still with founder Mingiedi Mawangu, and in 2016 in collaboration with Batida, the Kinshasa collective returns to FMM alongside Montparnasse Musique, the producer duo formed by Franco-Algerian Nadjib Ben Bella and South African Aero Manyelo. In this new phase, what is essential to the sound of Konono Nº1 remains intact: amplified likembes, electrified trance banta, ingenuity in sonic experimentation. Yet there is also a strengthened connection to urban music and electronica, bringing renewed freshness to their repertoire of classics. Opening the festival’s final night beside the beach.

Isam Elias (Palestine)

Sines - Galp Stage @ Av. Vasco da Gama | 03h45 | Free admission

In 2019, he closed FMM on Avenida Vasco da Gama as one half of the duo Zenobia. In 2026, he returns with his solo project, created two years ago in Paris. Isam Elias is a pianist, composer, singer and songwriter. He was born in Nazareth in 1991. He is Palestinian. Keyboards are an extension of his fingers: the piano, which he began studying at the age of six, but also synthesisers. In this performance, he takes us to a meeting point between Western rhythms and production, and the dances of the Middle East and North Africa, with additional touches of dancehall. He commands the final dance of FMM 2026 to the sound of Arabic pop, Levantine dabke and impactful electronica.