Morgan Cultural Association

Founded in 2012 and headed by critic, producer and musicologist Tadej Stolič, Morgan Cultural Association (KUD Morgan) is one of the main organisers of live music events in Nova Gorica and the surrounding region, with a particular focus on jazz, folk, world and Slovenian music. Starting with the Music of the World Festival (Glasbe sveta) in 2012, the association has since steadily added other concert cycles and festivals to its roster, most of which have subsequently been brought under the regionally focused Pretočnica banner.

Festivals and concert cycles

'Music of the World

Although KUD Morgan was involved from the start, the Music of the World Festival was inaugurated in 2013 at the initiative of the late Andrej Malnič, long-time director of the Goriška Museum, partly as a way of increasing the profile of the museum's main site at Kromberk Castle. The festival, generally held throughout August, has focused on high-profile home-grown acts (Boštjan Gombač, Uršula Ramoveš in fantje z Jazbecove grape, Vasko Atanasovski, Brina Vogelnik and Neca Falk, among others), although room has also been found for global names, such as Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu (2013), Swiss-Albanian singer Elina Duni (2015) and Hamid Drake, widely regarded as the world's best jazz percussionist (2020).

The first five editions took place exclusively at Kromberk Castle, with the sixth being split with the atrium of the Municipality of Nova Gorica building in the centre of the city. The festival fittingly returned wholly to Kromberk in 2018, the European Year of Cultural Heritage, before a collaboration with Controtempo, a Cormons-based cultural organisation specialising in jazz, tipped a portion of the festival over the Italian border into Gorizia in 2019 as the (ultimately successful) joint Nova Gorica-Gorizia bid to become 2025 European Capital of Culture gathered pace. The events were held at Kromberk and at Teatro Verdi in Gorizia, which hosted a concert by Kamasi Washington, the biggest international name to appear at the festival to that point.

The Covid emergency meant that the 2020 edition was a scaled-back affair, although the collaboration with Gorizia and Controtempo continued. There was some controversy in the months leading up to the festival as the Municipality of Nova Gorica, responsible for around 20% of the festival's funding but faced with swingeing budget cuts as a result of the pandemic, insisted that the Slovenian part of the festival be moved from Kromberk to the centre of the city. Resistance was largely successful, which meant that Kromberk could continue to play its role as the festival's spiritual home.

External links

Morgan Cultural Association

Festivals and concert cycles

See also

External links

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