Folkest Festival

Folkest Festival is a world music festival held in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Carinthia (Austria) and Istria (Slovenia) under the sponsorship of UNESCO. It was launched in 1979 at San Daniele del Friuli by a group of young cultural entrepreneurs, journalists and musicians, initially to provide a meeting point for avant garde folk music movements, but it later developed new formulas and experiments (stages, seminars, screenings, new itineraries) and new names. Almost a thousand musical groups have now performed at Folkest, with more than 100 Friulian, Slovene, Carinthian and Istrian localities hosting itinerant performances. The festival attracts some 50,000 visitors and numerous foreign journalists every year. Since 1992 TV Koper-Capodistria has officially covered the entire festival. During the second half of the 1990s Folkest began promoting large exclusive productions, including performances by Angelo Branduardi, the Chieftains, David Shea, the Inti Illimani and Carlos Nuñez, together with Friulian artists such as La Sedon Salvadie and Daniele D'Agaro. In 2002 Folkest hosted the European Youth Folk Orchestra, Los De Abajo from Mexico, John Trudell (USA), Variano (Brasil), Taraf da Metropulitana (Romania), Contempo Trio (France), Goran Bregovic (Serbia), Vruja (Istria), Sara Tavares (Capo Verde) and the groups Noa and Esta from Israel, along with several Italian, Dutch, Austrian, Spanish, German, English, Scottish, Irish and Swedish folk musicians. The Folkest Festival takes place at Friulian, Slovene (in the city of Koper and at Hrvatini), Carinthian and Istrian localities.

Folkest Festival

Operated by

Financed by