Are you ready for another Ethno adventure? Take a look a this year’s fabulous events and camps list! The registrations are already open for Ethno Sweden, Ethno Flanders, Ethno France and Ethno Croatia but hurry up as it looks like the places will be quickly filled in. Don’t forget about Estonia’s Spring Ethno which is round the corner and will give you a taster of what the camp is all about. We’re delighted to see Australia again on the list and also we’re keeping our fingers crossed so that India and Tanzania will be able to join the movement.
The quick facts: 25 artists from 11 European countries, 1 week full of workshops and rehearsals, recordings and 2 concerts in the outskirts of Paris. The initiative of AOLF proposed to gather - between 21 and 28 January - old and new, potential and future Ethno leaders in an attempt to sum and sublimate their common perception of what Ethno is and further develop its principles and methodology. A difficult task we may say but when you also add the music to the recipe, you know it’s going to be at least pleasant.
And so it was… a full on, hard working week with daily workshops in the first part, rehearsals in the second and then endless jam sessions to fill in the gaps. Day and night, everybody talked, taught, learned, sang and sweat music. Just like in an Ethno camp, all musicians came prepared to teach the rest a traditional tune from their country. It was more than that though, a meeting between old, new and forthcoming Ethno participants and leaders aiming to bridge the generation gap and open new Ethno horizons.
By the the end of the week, the repertoire had tunes from Sweden, Romania, Norway, Denmark, Austria, UK, Estonia, France, Spain, Bulgaria and France or over 1 hour of traditional live music with a modern twist. Just before the last day of the rehearsals the genius idea struck: why not wrap the songs around a story? But what story could fit better than a romance? And so the wonderful adventure of the musicians ended and the story of the Ethnofonik Orchestra began. It’s not something usual to hear in a concert so many traditional songs from so many different cultures performed with such a highly contagious, sheer enthusiasm. It was equally educative as it was entertaining for everyone exposed to it and a certain uplifting feeling was in the air both nights that weekend. Luckily everything was recorded and the rest of the world will hear the story soon enough. We’re pretty sure that saying goodbye the second day was hard for everyone involved after such an intense experience. It’s from these kind of moments you get the undeniable proof that music does make a difference.
Folkroddels.be is the biggest and most visited Belgian folk-site, representing a thriving local folk scene which has many things to be proud about. One of them it definitely is Ethno Flanders, which has been playing an important role in the scene and its artists development during the past 11 years. Each year, the Ethno Flanders ensemble performs at world renowned Dranouter Festival, a stalwart event for trad/folk/world music in the Benelux.
Ethno Flanders was nominated for “Best Live Group 2011″ and you can support them by submitting your vote on the forum.
The Estonian Traditional Music Center in Viljandi organizes between 21 and 24 March a camp for young people (ages 14 - 35) interested in playing a musical instrument and to learn more about Estonian and Scottish traditional music and different styles of European traditional music.
The workshops will have as main musical leaders/mentors a selected string of traditional musicians like Kate Young, Merike Paberits and Jaan Jaago.
The process of learning is carried out through workshops where the participants learn the songs and techniques from the supervisors by listening and repeating. The participants are divided into two groups for the instrument workshops. In addition to the main workshops, joint workshops will also be held by Silver Sepp, Sofia Joons, Juhan Suits and Margit Kuhi. The camp will close with a concert during the Traditional Music Center birthday celebrations.
Registration
There’s 30 places to be filled in. The participation fee is 60 euros (workshops, food and accommodation).
If you want to participate - write an email to Sofia Joons sofia.joons@folk.ee.
Deadline for international participants: 1 March.
Only 2 weeks left until this year’s Ethno Australia, which we hope will be the first in a long and wonderful series that will join the dots between European folk, traditional indigenous and world music!
The first Ethno in the Southern hemisphere is ready to welcome participants from India, Thailand, Europe, Polynesia, Melanesia, Brazil, Chile, Israel and Australia, of course.
Connect with the Facebook page to stay up to date with the latest updates and event announcements as it looks like there will be several occasions to see them live. The cherry on top will be the performance during the “Woodford Folk Festival”, one of the biggest in the world with an attendance of up to 100.000 people!
