Brda Contemporary Music Festival
Festival programme
Besides Zlatko Kaučič, the other festival curator is the Italian double bass player Giovanni Maier, a long-time collaborator of Zlatko. Together they present a programme that mainly features Slovenian and Italian artists of the younger generation, with the Italians often coming from the Dobia Lab collective, an informal cultural organisation and venue in the neighbouring Italian town Staranzano. Similarly, the Slovenian musicians are often connected to the Zlatko Kaučič Kombo project, in which a number of Slovenia's young improvisers have participated. Some of the musicians playing on the stages in Šmartno (or Medana) were Jošt Drašler, Vid Drašler, Marko Karlovčec, Boštjan Simon, Vitja Balžalorsky, Marko Lasič, Massimo di Mattia, Paolo Pascolo, Aghe Clope, and naturally also Kaučič and Maier.
Alongside these musical acts, there are photography exhibitions by photographers such as Žiga Koritnik, Tanja Rusjan or Iztok Zupan, and also light installation and performances by the crew of Hybrida from Tarcenta, Italy. While the video performances are done in conjunction with the music being played, the installations are set throughout the village. Dance performances, poetry acts and even film screenings are paired with live music being played, with some of the poets being Petra Koršič, Alenka Jovanovski and Petra Paravan. Besides all this, other things make their way into the programme as well.
Music workshops and Orchestra Without Borders
One of the main festival features are two-day long workshops, led by important figures from the improvised music scene, such as Evan Parker, Phil Minton, Joëlle Léandre, Johannes Bauer and Ab Baars (who also hold concerts of their own). The participants of the workshops are usually the hosted musicians and some random visitors, coming from Slovenia, Croatia and Italy. These workshops at the end result in orchestra gigs, led by the mentors of the workshops.
The name of these orchestra formations is usually Orkester brez meja / Orchestra Senza Confini [Orchestra without borders], and in way it is an extended combination of the Dob Orchestra (of the Dobia lab musicians) and of the Zlatko Kaučič Kombo. In 2014, Zlatko and Giovanni started developing a double simultaneous conduction concept which resulted in a 2014 concert of the Orchestra at the the festival, where it was recorded and later released in 2015.
See also
External links
- [/2/ Brda Contemporary Music Festival web page]
- Dobia Lab website
- Zaltko kaučuč website