Balkan body music in August

First destination was Folkest World Music Showcase. In the scenic surroundings of San Daniele del Friuli, close to Udine, we had a concert at the old city square. Day after were scheduled speed meetings. We even gave a secret showcase at the local church with perfect acoustics. This showcase festival is a part of the Upbeat platform. As a musician, you get one month of online training amplified through the Music Manager app. Read more about it and apply!

Kaustinen Folk Music Festival was pure joy! More then 50 years, this festival brings the music and dance lovers from all around Finland – and the world. You can meet artists and enthusiasts of all ages and profiles, which is such a beautiful community. And there were around 20.000 people at the festival! It is really a special time of Finnish summer when nature gives all the blessings, amplified with sauna and cold river plunges. No time to sleep, because the sun never leaves the sky, we even saw mists appearing in white nights on the green fields. A magical place.

We were proud that the flag of Serbia was flying among other international flags. We are grateful for the support of the City of Novi Sad.

Working with Vilma Talvitie was easy and so inspirational. We held the workshop in the morning and brought the bravest participants (of course, women) on the stage with us for one song. Part of the concert was mostly improvised, for the lack of rehearsal time. Vilma joined us for the performance of Mesečinka and Bratec kosio. And we were so connected with the audience, that they accompanied us in one of Vilma’s songs, a lullaby for adults. Hard to put this in words.

Performance at Trefpunt festival in Ghent was completely different. It was a bold decision of the artistic director, Jan Hooze, to program us at Baudelo Park, stage in a natural amphitheater near the water. If you’ve never been there, it is bordering with a promenade where thousands of people pass during Gentse Feesten. It was a new experience for us, felt a little bit like we are buskers. It seems we are preparing for the Gwangju Busking World Cup in October. In two days, we performed a concert, led a workshop and did the theater show Kiss.

Final adventure in July was the concert in Trenčin in Slovakia at the Musical Picnic Series. We feel funny always speaking English in communication with Slavic audiences. This time Marko spoke Serbian. City stage, Atrium pod mestskou vežou was full of audience of all ages. We were rewarded with standing ovation at the end of the concert.

We look forward to coming back to tour in Slovakia and Czech Republic in August.

We are very grateful for being asked and heard!

We recorded an interview in Ghent for the movie dedicated to Sounds Of Europe project.

Film maker Firas El Hallak asked us important questions of art, community, ecology, world. We are grateful to express our credo and speak about motivation and meaning of what we do. This project brought us to the Netherlands to Music Meeting, here to Ghent to Trefpunt Festival and will, again in August, to World Music Festival Bratislava. And the movie will bring us to next WOMEX to Manchester, this time only on the screen.

One more interview you can actually read is for Moja kultura, Slovakian media for culture. Music from the Balkans makes Central European heart skip a beat from Zuzana Vachová speaks about art as well as ideas and practice behind it.

Soon you’ll be able to read something more, announcing our tour in Slovakia and performance at the World Music Festival Bratislava.