Okarina Festival Bled

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Okarina festival Bled

Riklijeva cesta 9, SI-4260 Bled

http://www.festival-okarina.si/sl

leo@okarina.com

Phone386 (0) 4 574 1458

Organised byBled Cultural Institute

Frequencyannual

Festival dates23.7.2019 - 3.8.2019

Events abroad

Past Events

• 25 Oct 2017

  to

  29 Oct 2017

  Poland Katowice

  
  programme

  organiser

  
  

  A national stand presenting Slovene music, organised by SIGIC, Slovene Music Information Centre, presenting a new compilation CD Tuning into the World: Slovenia, participating also Cankarjev dom, Druga godba Festival, Okarina Festival Bled and Glitterbeat Records

  at the WOMEX, the World Music Expo

  
  

  
  

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The Okarina Festival is a world music festival, held in the alpine town of Bled since 1991. Presenting a very wide range of musicians, its focus spans from the many traditional folk genres to the more contemporary, hybridized idioms. The festival's creed is in part summed up by its name, which alludes to a very ancient wind musical instrument that could be found all over the world and is called the ocarina.

The festival is currently held at two venues – the Bled Castle and the so called Bled Promenade, a grassy beach besides the lake. There, one can listen to those concerts that are free of charge. Additionally, the Bled Festival Hall is usually meant as a backup in case of rain.

Recreating Middle Ages troubadour lyrics, the French trio Sirventes performed at the yard of the Bled Castle in 2016

Background

The founder of the festival is Leo Ličof, who even after half a century still acts as the main organizer and the artistic director of the festival. He set up its first few editions at the grounds of the restaurant he then ran on the shore of Lake Bled, but the following years saw the festival moving around quite a bit.

While there were only a few bands on the bill at the start, the festival progressively got a lot bigger and so did the names hosted. Some of the artists hosted during the early years of the festival were the legendary UK folk bands Fairport Convention and Pentangle and the singer Marta Sebastian (HU).

Programme

The festival invites all sorts of musicians, from flamenco bands, qawwali artists and Irish folk singers to US blues guitarist and jazz influenced Moroccan gnawa musicians. The festival line-up has in recent years featured Aziz Sahmaoui (MA), Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita (SN, UK), Ester Rada (IL), Orquesta Revé (CU), Osibisa (UK), Tenores di Bitti (IT), Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra (ES), Taksim Trio (TR), Earl King Boogie Band (UK), Frankie Lane (IE), Big Daddy Wilson (UK) and Esme Redžepova (MK).

Of the local artists performing here, one can name Brina, Neca Falk, Kontrabant and – numerous times – Vlado Kreslin.

The famed Croatian singer Josipa Lisac performing at the big stage of the Okarina Festival in 2015

See also

• Bled Cultural Institute
• Bled Castle
• Bled Festival Hall

External links

• Okarina Festival Bled website
• Ocarina instrument on Wikipedia
• A blog on artists featured in the 2015 edition
• An article about the festival and its foudner

Gallery

The famed Croatian singer Josipa Lisac performing at the big stage of the Okarina Festival in 2015

Recreating Middle Ages troubadour lyrics, the French trio Sirventes performed at the yard of the Bled Castle in 2016

Each year, a part of the Okarina Festival takes place on the shores of lake Bled

Bled Castle features as one of the main stages of the Okarina Festival Bled. Among other acts it also featured the Spanish singer Amparo Velasco alias La Negra, 2017

Amparo Velasco (alias La Negra), performing with her band at the Bled Castle stage of the Okarina Festival Bled, 2017