Trubatalk - Festivals and Bands 2!

Balkan Trafik

A yearly 5-day festival in Brussels, Belgium, the Balkan Trafik features numerous artists from around the world. Their 15th anniversary festival will be in April 2021, and their website has the numerous artists that they promote and will have. While this isn't exclusively Balkan Bass, the numerous Balkan arts that they feature often include brass ensembles.

Guča na Krasu

There's not much available that isn't behind paywalls or in another language about Guča na Krasu

Pehcevo Festival of Wind Bands

A similar case is true for this festival as the above - except there isn't an obvious video available as well!

I guess the moral of this blog is not to trust Wikipedia.

Comments

Goran Bregovic & his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra

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 ...

ABEL Central Trawling

After digging through older blogs, I've located a few pieces that I want to highlight as some of my favorites. Tomasi's Fanfares Liturgiques features a distinctly 20th-century sound, skirting around atonality and flirting with it quite heavily. However, this isn't in the 12-tone or serialist style, instead being its own impressionist or expressive piece. Anthony DiLorenzo's Fire Dance for Brass Quintet is a fantastically energetic piece, sitting well into the programmatic side of music. It wouldn't be a far leap to imagine this in any movie soundtrack. The Seraph Brass has long been a favorite ensemble of mine, and paired with Jan Bach, one of my favorite composers for brass, you have a winning combination to my ears! (Adding Jeff Luke's arrangement of Hungarian Dance no. 2 for fun.)

Non-Truba!

Many thanks to Professor Manning for showing me the ensembles from all of these links!! Moravian Trombone Choir A trombone ensemble used in Moravian worship services. Jaipur Kawa - Indian brass band. Bollywood Brass Band Gangbê Brass Band - brass band from Africa. Kenny Carr and the Tigers

Balkan Brass and Brass the World Over

Search This Blog