EtnoRock Festival

Contact

EtnoRock festival

Various venues, SI-1230 Domžale

szomi@siol.net

Organised byKUD Kontrabant

Frequencyannual

Festival dates28.8.2015

Festival of Ethno and Rock has been going on in Domžale since 1996, when it was established by Béla Szomi Kralj, a musician from the folk band Kontrabant. The aim of the festival was to present artists that do contemporary takes on various folk musics, which was at that time still a rather peripheral endeavour. Some of the bands who helped with setting up the festival and appeared on it many times throughout the years are Orlek, Ana Pupedan and MI2. As these and many other similar bands operate within a rock idiom, the festival was called Ethno-Rock Festival (this name was changed into Festival of Ethno and Rock in 2014).

Though the festival has an international line-up, its main focus has always been set on quality world and rock bands from Slovenia, many of them regularly returning to its stage. The festival is also a part of an informal network of different festivals and artists, and has already enabled quite a few excursions abroad to the musicians involved.

Festival programme

The main part of the programme usually starts early, sometime during the afternoon, and presents around six or seven bands, half of them (if possible) the less know newcomers and one from abroad. The rest are the well established bands like StrojMachine, Same babe, Vlado Kreslin in Beltinška banda, Tolovaj Mataj, Terrafolk, Brencl Banda, Orlek, Slon in sadež, Bossa de Novo, Marko Hatlak, Čompe, Fake Orchestra, Katalena and – each year – Kontrabant. The foreign guests include The Filth (USA), Zuf de Žur (IT), Etnoploč (IT), Hetret (HU), Strune (MK), Belfast Food (HR) and Banda Berimbau (IT).

Since 2011, Festival of Ethno and Rock also has a second day, which is called Jari ERF [Young Ethno-Rock Festival] and which engages with the kids, mainly those between 4 and 12 years of age. The stage is reserved for young musicians of about that age, the invited audience are their contemporaries, and there is also a music workshop led by an established folk band. All of this furthers the main ambition of the festival – facilitating Slovenian folk music in its contemporary life and passing it on to the next generation.

External links

• Kontrabant website