Folk Holidays Festival, Náměšť nad Oslavou (Repubblica Ceca), 27 luglio – 2 agosto 2025/Maraton hudby Brno (Music Marathon Brno), Brno (Repubblica Ceca), 7

English Version

Summer festivals in the heart of Europe

In past decade, focus of both world music audiences and professionals shifted to Central and Eastern Europe. In 2015, Womex, the World Music Expo, was staged for the first time behind the former Iron Curtain, in Budapest, Hungary. Dozens of new festivals or showcase events emerged, including Pin in Skopje, or Czech Music Crossroads in Ostrava. Maybe you are asking, is it worth to travel to the other side of our continent? Are you getting value for your money? I shall try to answer, focusing on 2 events in Moravia, the eastern region of Czech Republic. And yes, it is a good idea to explore regions outside of Prague, the capital. There is practical reason for that. Because, in Prague, the competition is pushing the festival programmers to be more mainstream oriented. While in regions, the scene is more varied, and allows to move off the beaten path. First, we shall visit Náměšť nad Oslavou (translated: Náměšť upon the Oslava river), a picturesque town about 20 minutes by car south of Brno, the regional capital of Moravia. The winding road above the town leads to a chateau with a park, where the festival Folk Holidays runs since 1986. For decades the event kept the format of an intimate festival, with 800-1300 people at a concert, moderately filling the park. Non-mainstream programming actually regulates the size of the crowd, so it's the more adventurous listeners who choose to spend their holidays in Náměšť. With limited budget, it is not easy to bring world-class musicians like Sam Lee, Amsterdam Klezmer Band or Habib Koite, this year main attractions, to the

Moravian countryside, but the program director Michal Schmidt developed some efficient tricks. “Our festival is 8 days long, Saturday to Saturday. But from Monday to Thursday, bands on tour are less busy and cheaper than on weekends, when they earn higher fees at big festivals.”

Holidays in a castle

The program is built on a thoughtful balance between international and local artists, including also our East neighbour Slovakia, a country shaped by multiple valleys and mountain ranges, where music traditions survived much longer than on the Western side of the border. One of the most inspiring Slovakian bands, Dis is Markéta, offers clever arrangements with cello and piano, and unique melodies. Their strongest song Hrajžemi sounds like a natural and timeless hit. I remember my international colleagues compared the unique melodic structures to the Beatles' repertoire two generations earlier. Another special artist from Slovakia, Júlia Kozáková, is a non-gypsy singer focusing on Roma/Gypsy tradition from Eastern Europe, backed by combination of the key instruments of the genre: cimbalom, double bass, violin and viola. She is an artist with bright future. After studies at the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London she is extending her education at Berklee Valencia in the next semester. One of the key surprises of Monday night was Mandé Sila, an all star West African quartet, featuring the balafon virtuoso Aly Keïta and Habib Koite, who preferred to be listed as a sideman and not a headliner, just to express his respect for the Mandé musical heritage. The daily set of three concerts at the Castle Park is

every night followed by a late gig in an intimate venue. Trio Gilgul, an unusual combination of guitar, drums, flute and voice performed in a multi purpose cultural hall Old Weaving Mill. They draw from cleverly selected mix of ancient Hebrew texts, transposing them into contemporary musical language, and creating some magical puzzles. Their song Lekha dodi, originally a 16th century religious poem, sustained its spiritual message, but in contemporary context it beautifully fits to the same box as gospel from the deep south of the US. Other attractions in brief: The young (19 years only) female Irish guitarist and singer Muireann Bradley from Donegal, Ireland, reviewing the ragtime and blues guitar standards from past century, originally sung mostly by men. Tcheka, one of the leading singers-songwriters from Cape Verde, performing with Cuban pianist Rolando Luna. Contrary to Tcheka's past projects, this was more like two masters sharing the stage rather than a dialogue. The real culmination of the 8 days week was the duo Justin Adams & Mauro Durante, I know they were praised on “BlogFoolk Magazine” many times before. As a non-Italian I can just add, how unique is this collaboration between two different cultures: pizzica from Puglia, and blues rooted styles from the Anglophone world. It does not work just on musical level but also proves how emotions are easily translated by music from one culture to another. The duo played on Wednesday, and returned as a quartet “Trance Nad Oslavou” on Friday. The 2 additional artists were Alessia Tondo, of Mauro Durante's Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, and Yousra Mansour from the

French-Morocco band Bab L’ Bluz. Her instrument is a custom-built double neck “guitar”, combining the Gnawa guimbri, and Algerian mandola, and bearing Bab L' Bluz name in Tamazigh script. This was the world premiere of a project that evolved through series of emails after Womex 2024, and hopefully will continue the next season. The selection of the both female singers was very natural, as they contributed to the latest album of the duo, Sweet Release. The festival is a whole package of events offering much more than just music. Exhibitions and many layered daylight programs. Workshops including tango lessons, forest walk with singing hosted by Sam Lee, children games, and a 2-day colloquium with academy level entries later published in print. This year, one of the main guests was the Norwegian radio presenter and music producer Sigbjørn Nedland. Besides his colloquium entry, he presented his book Kultur-Retur mapping the history of world music not based on regions, but migration routes. His 60 minutes presentation with dozens of illustrations and music clips was titled Music in Motion - 15 Musical Journeys Across 5 Continents and 100 Centuries.

Marathon In The City

The second festival, Music Marathon Brno took place exactly 1 week later in Brno, the second largest city of Czechia, population 400 000. It was very different in form, but related in aim: to build a bridge between general audience and artists deserving recognition. By format it is a city festival, a summer event well

represented by dozens of other festivals including Bardentreffen in Nürenberg, Germany, with almost 5 decades long history. The Marathon team is led by an experienced music enterpreneur David Dittrich, and Milan Tesař, currently the secretary of World Music Charts Europe, who took this position after the founder Johannes Theurer decided to retire. The festival runs in different locations of the city. Some are free, some paid, some in the “busking area” in the centre, some off-centre in large open air venue like Brno Velodrom, some in intimate connoisseur venues in the historical centre. Dozens of artists were performing simultaneously, so the following review is very selective, for detailed report you need to hire a well-organized “squadra” of journalists. First the highlights. Sväng is the harmonica all star band from Finland. Promotion pictures may look like a well-designed gimmick, but that is completely misleading. Seeing them live, I was convinced from the start. The first impulse was a Balkan tune, dedicated to the Gypsy legend Taraf de Haidouks, but evolving into Americana theme. Surprisingly, this combination resulted as a most extreme antipode to the routine Balkan routine. But there was more to come. Sväng based their last album on “tango nuevo”, and hence titled it Svängo Nuevo. Here, some context is needed. Tango started a new life in Finland, replacing bandoneon with accordion, and now Sväng continue to break the old rules. “Are you going to play Satumaa, the most famous Finnish tango, covered by Frank Zappa on his legendary series You Can't Do this on Stage Anymore?” “No, that is too mainstream,” replied Eero

Turkka, a musician with a very colourful past. He started as a harmonica player with a blues band, learning licks from the Chicago blues master Little Walter (1930-1968), and later lived 12 years in Bulgaria. Yes, harmonica has a very different meaning in different genres. The important part of Music Marathon programming is the “artist in residence” section. This exclusive position was awarded for 2025 to the maestro of Indian percussion, Trilog Gurtu. He is a true pioneer of integrating the Hindustani “tala” rhythmic concept in the western musical language, as documented by his albums with Oregon, one of the first “world music” ensembles. In Brno, he gave a workshop, and 3 very different concerts. First was with Italian Arké string Quartet he started to work 20 years ago, next day with his mixed European jazz quartet. For the Brno audience, it was a unique occasion to review his past. A tribute to Don Cherry, one of his first jazz partners, or Like Popcorn, a fictional meeting of Miles Davis with Bollywood. His third performance, on Sunday, the final day, was his solo concert. Balkan music is one of the main festival attractions, and The Brno Velodrom arena hosted Balkan night with two live acts sandwiched between DJ sets. Dumai Dunai is in fact a wild punk-party band based in Montreal, belonging to the huge Balkan-Slavic Canadian scene. Some of their members actually played with the founding group of the movement, The Lemon Bucket Orkestra. Dubioza Kolektiv, the second band of the set, is one of the longest serving Bosnian bands, fusing their punk roots with strong, and deeply authentic political statements. The Serbia born

composer and viola player Jelena Popržan is one of the strongest voices of ex-Yugoslav diaspora, living in Austria, and performing as a one-woman band combining her musical gifts with fascinating stories and striking technical inventiveness. From Slovakia comes the singer Ildiko Kali, this year's winner of the influential Slovak Radio Heads awards in the World Music category. Her roots are Roma, but her music is quite different from your typical routine gypsy band. The main link between both is the “feeling”, the Gypsy parallel to Andalucian “duende”, but her songs from her award winning Jore Jore album display her full talent as a visionary songwriter, playing games with melodies coming from different cultures, but magically fitting together.