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.
To start off this blog, I figure it's best to start where my fascination with Balkan music did: the poppin' Balkan Brass Band. A friend introduced me to them in high school, and I've been in love ever since. Their charts range from traditional Balkan brass music to arrangements of pop tunes like Mission Impossible, and their playing is bombastic and soulful. Being in high school, the concept of mixed meter blew my budding 16-year-old musician mind. Thus we find Kerta Mangae Dae. The non-Western scales of Slavic countries also caught my young ear. Slavic Soul Party's Opa Cupa combines an insistent beat with entrancing vocals to produce on of my favorite tracks to this date. Not to mention the dirty triple tonguing in the trumpets and the fat oom-pah laid down by that raunchy low brass section. Finish it all off with an accordion solo and you've got yourself a certified bop.
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. !
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