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Trubatalk - Festivals and Bands!

Like the Guca festival, there are numerous other Balkan brass festivals around the world.

The Roma Truba Fest, usually in September, features Roma brass bands playing in their style in Kumanovo, North Macedonia.
The video above features the band Uska Kan, one of the prominent Balkan brass bands in Macedonia.
There are multiple other videos of the Roma Truba Fest online as well, but this recording features a particularly popular band.
They have numerous recordings up on YouTube, performing in various venues and locations, including Turkey, and at the Guca festival in 2013, which they won.
Their performances include arrangements of popular tunes as well as their own music.


For New Yorkers, another famous Balkan brass ensemble hosts the Zlatne Uste Golden Festival every year in Brooklyn. The 2020 festival (before the Coronavirus) was their 35th anniversary, and was lead by the band Zlatne Uste. While it's a little difficult to find great recordings of them online, their Spotify albums show their style quite well - from their bio, "Zlatne Uste's repertoire spans the most important stops in the traditional music of the Balkans -- Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Gypsy traditions."

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