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.
This embedded video is the entirety of my Balkan Brass playlist on YouTube. It's a continuously updated playlist of absolutely everything I can find Balkan Brass related! After all is said and done, I won't be surprised if this playlist has hundreds of videos. !
For readers entirely unfamiliar with the tradition, this is a great place to start. Balkan Brass is a style of music originating in the Balkan region in Europe, including Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. Occasionally, Moldavia, Greece, and continental Turkey are added to the list of Balkan Brass' origins. The Romani minority community in Europe is the primary origin of this style of music. It must be acknowledged that their musical style has been influenced through cultural exchange with other communities in the region, such as the Muslim and Jewish peoples in Europe. The music is a fusion of military and folk influences. After the liberation of Serbia in the early 1800s, the military brass performance traditions in the region were inevitably 'brought home,' and people began performing their own cultural music and folk tunes using variations of trumpets, brass ensembles, and percussion. Balkan b...
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