The Guča Trumpet Festival is a yearly Balkan Brass band festival which takes place in the provincial town of Guča, Serbia. It's entirely free to attend, and a festival promoter estimates that 900,000 people (more realistically 600,000) come to the town of 2000 every year to partake in one of the largest musical parties in Europe, and certainly the largest of its kind. Groups from all over Serbia, and from all over the world, travel to compete, with no monetary prize in sight - only the fame that comes with winning the Golden Trumpet. In the documentary above, it's asserted numerous times that winning at the festival (and even placing well) can make an entire band's career. The documentary follows the life of one trumpet player, then the entire band, as they make their way to the festival, rehearsing in an impoverished town. For a brass group at the festival, the documentary notes that this group is particularly inclusive - the tubist is blind, the group has the only woman competing in the entire festival, and the bandmembers comment that they're a perfect mix of cultures, races, and different experiences to make their fantastic music. While the band doesn't win the Golden Trumpet, their tuba player is recognized as the best at the festival, which is a large victory for the ensemble which hadn't won any awards previously.
It's interesting to hear the difference in musical culture - none of these players can read music, and few of them have studied music formally, instead opting to learn from ear and 'by heart.' The brass playing certainly doesn't fit the orchestral model of the West, but it has its own energy and power which draws people from all around the world to the sound.
The competition itself has four parts - the elimination heats in competitions before the festival, the Friday opening concerts, Saturday night parties, and Sunday's competition for prizes and recognition.
It was founded in 1961. A more in-depth history of the festival can be found on the Wikipedia page, and from numerous official and unofficial websites and articles across the net.
Above is a recording of Bregovic and his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra playing two of their classics, Bella Ciao and Kalashnikov at the 2012 Sziget (Island) festival in Budapest, Hungary. Goran Bregovic, born in 1950, is a Yugoslavian musician with many credits to his name. He's recorded and performed with a number of ensembles, such as his above Wedding and Funeral Orchestra, as well as Kodeksi and Jutro, two bands he participated in during his youth in Naples and Sarajevo. Bijelo Dugme was his main musical gig for a while, but I have him on Trubatalk here because of his involvement with Emir Kusturica on the 1995 film Underground , winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and because he has a massive output of Balkan Brass music deep in the Youtube algorithm. While this sits somewhat off the beaten path of Balkan Brass, I cannot recommend Underground enough. Make sure you're ready to watch it, and do your reading on it beforehand - it's a fairly dark ...
Schoenberg's string quartets are some of my favorite 'crunchy listening', so discovering his works for brass was one of my favorite parts of this class. Twentieth-century 'classical' brass writing, with its various influences, and coupled with the developments made in both brass manufacturing and performance, make it some of the most interesting listening out there. Today's post will reflect on various major brass compositions from 20th-century avant-garde composers. One of the pieces that we listened to ages ago in ABEL that I fell in love with was the Lutoslawski Mini Overture. Another that I've performed before, which isn't specifically for brass ensemble, but has massive brass parts, is Hindemith's Symphony in B flat for Wind Ensemble. While at the Atlantic Brass Quintet Seminar, I performed Plog's Four Sketches for Brass Quintet. The performance experience is just as energized as the listening experience is - the chromaticism and ti...
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