Curious About the World

Interview with Jan Słowiński, organiser of the Rozstaje Festival of Traditional Music

On 22-26 July the 11th edition of Rozstaje (Crossroads) Festival will be taking place. Since its 1999 debut, the event has concentrated on the achievements of musicians from Małopolska and is currently one of the largest world music festivals in this part of Europe. It would appear that the music policy behind Rozstaje is still evolving. So in what direction is the festival heading?

The first editions of Rozstaje Festival were an attempt to get to know better the most interesting music around us. This led to appearances by folk groups from Małopolska but also artists appearing back then in Poland’s folk scene joining tradition with modern forms of expression. Today Rozstaje is a forum for groups from the whole world: large open air concerts, chamber concerts and music workshops. A confrontation between the international and Polish world music, ethnojazz and ethno scenes. We will be joining the dots between different musical styles and genres: from traditional approaches through to re-workings and experiments combining traditional music and jazz, folk and rock as well as classical music inspired by traditional motifs. What is also essential and could well distinguish us from other “multiculti” projects: we are not “blending cultures”; if the sounds already exist… Rozstaje is a meeting point, a dialogue, inspiration.

What have been the decisive factors in Rozstaje’s success up to this point?

The performers and the audience… good concerts, a variety of formats, thematic concert cycles (concerts devoted to one instrument or epic songs), the accent on “interactivity” (the workshops). And something indefinable which sometimes delivers notable effects: new music projects, new friendships, relationships, children.

Ethnic music is enjoying undiminished success. How is it that traditional sounds are still finding droves of new listeners?

We are actually doing everything “live”. This has added value in times when playback and the ersatz have become the domain of the mass media. But I believe that this above all results from human curiosity about the world and the need to converse on a personal level with art.

Previous Rozstaje guests together make up a “catalogue of stars” of the world music scene, artists and groups whose presence is an event in itself at the most prestigious festivals in the world. Who will we see this year in Kraków?

On Friday: the legendary joint project of Jamaican rastafarians and Podhale highlanders: Twinkle Brothers and Trebunie-Tutki. A star of Jamaican roots reggae juxtaposed with a family group from Biały Dunajec. On Saturday: Sebastian Karpiel with the Zakopower group. A second interesting part of the new Podhale music scene. As creative as it is bold. Particularly worthy of advance mention is the Sunday concert in the Kraków Filharmonia Hall. In the first part: the Bester Quartet, one of the most interesting groups on the contemporary avant-garde scene; in the second, world music: Dhaffer Youssef – rooted in the sufi tradition, a Tunisian singer and virtuoso al oud [the oud is an Arabic lute]. A mystical concert.

Previous editions of the festival didn’t just feature music. There were also themed workshops and film screenings. Will it be similar this time?

This time, there’ll be as many as five “workshop” days. One new concept is the Visegrad House of Dancing (22-26 July) – a series of workshops featuring dances from Central Europe with the participation of wonderful musicians and dancers from Hungary, Slovakia, Moravia and Poland and there is also School at the Crossroads – a series of workshops for amateur violinists (22-24 July): The Music of Podhale (led by Krzysztof Trebunia-Tutka) and The Music of Mazowsze (led by Janusz Prusinowski).

Which phenomena on the Polish and global world music scene do you consider to be of particularly interest?

I refer you to the Rozstaje programme…, I invite you to the Main Square and in Rotunda and the Kraków Philharmonic Hall.


11th Traditional Music Festival – Rozstaje 2009, 22-26 July 2009
Organiser: Rozstaje Association
www.rozstaje.pl

Karnet 6/2009