Materula: The Minister leaving Casa da Música orchestra to serve her country – Mozambique

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Materula: The Minister leaving Casa da Música orchestra to serve her country – Mozambique

3:25 CAT | 21 Jan 2020

File photo: Social Media

The new Minister of Culture and Tourism of Mozambique, Eldevina Materula, said yesterday in Portugal that she had never thought to become a minister in her country’s government, but admitted that she always had “aspirations to help Mozambique”.

“It was never my aspiration to be a minister. But it was always an aspiration of mine to help Mozambique, and that is why I do what I do in Mozambique, with the Xiquitsi project,” the new Minister of Culture and Tourism of Mozambique told Lusa yesterday in Oporto, where she is an oboe soloist with the Casa da Musica Symphony Orchestra.

A few hours before travelling home to Mozambique, Eldevina Materula said she felt “extremely honoured” to have been appointed Minister of Culture and Tourism.

“I feel extremely honoured. I couldn’t be happier, because this is undoubtedly recognition of the professional work which I have been doing in Mozambique, and without being in any political party,” she said, referring again to the Xiquitsi project, started in the Mozambican capital in 2013.

Materula runs the Xiquitsi project, which aims to integrate and train children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds through collective music education, and create the country’s first symphony orchestra.

Her work with the project earned the now-minister an Order of Merit medal from the President of Portugal in 2016.

Image result for Eldevina Materula — *Casa da Música, in Oporto, Portugal. [File photo: Lusa]*

Eldevina Materula’s appointment was also celebrated by the Casa da Música Foundation.

“Casa da Música wishes Eldevina Materula the best of luck in the exercise of the post of Minister of Culture and Tourism of Mozambique,” a statement from the Foundation reads.

Materula has been resident soloist oboe with the Casa da Música since 2009, and has contributed with “competence and dedication“ to the quality of the symphony orchestra and to the “development of Portuguese musical life”, the Casa da Música statement adds.

In addition to her role with the Casa da Música, Eldevina Materula has also distinguished herself as a teacher, artistic director and the creator of Xiquitsi.

Thirty-seven-year old Eldevina Materula, also known as Kika, was born in Maputo, Mozambique, and started her musical studies at the age of seven at the National School of Music. At the age of 13, she went to Portugal on an exchange programme to study at the Évora Professional Music School, where she discovered the oboe, the instrument that she went on to play in the Casa da Música orchestra.

The new Mozambican executive took office on Sunday, after general elections held on 15 October last year. Filipe Nyusi won the presidential elections and his party, the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo), won the legislative and provincial elections.

At the inauguration ceremony on Saturday at the Ponta Vermelha Palace, the official residence of the Mozambican head of state, the prime minister and 16 of the 17 ministers appointed on Friday took office, without the presence of the soon-to-be Minister of Culture and Tourism.

Source: Lusa