
Unusual and attractive: “Pocket Globe”
The first edition of the Pocket Globe world music festival will be held in Novi Sad, at three locations, from November 10 to 13, 2022, as part of the Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture program.
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The world music festival family in Serbia is getting a new member this year. The Pocket Globe event begins its life in Novi Sad – a city that lacked exactly this kind of festival, but in which numerous, important steps have been taken in strengthening the world music scene of Serbia and promoting this musical polygenre.
Thus, the Pocket Globe festival itself is an organic extension of the world music concert series of the same name, which were held in the “Eđšeg Cultural Station” starting from September 2019.
The Pocket Globe Festival is organized by the Ring Ring Association, in cooperation with the Music Information Center of Serbia, with the support of the “Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture project”, of which it is an integral part, as part of the “Other? Europe” program arc.
– “We are very glad to be part of ECoC! We should not forget the fact that the entire series of events, which is realized from last to next January, is also rich in offer of extraordinary world music concerts, so that the Pocket Globe festival turns out to be a kind of world music crown of all those events connected by the same genre” – says Bojan Đorđević, artistic director of the festival.
The program of the first Pocket Globe consists of six concerts and three lectures. During three concert evenings (Novi Sad Synagogue / Youth Theatre), musicians from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Morocco, France, Turkey, Iran and Cyprus will perform, bringing more traditional or more modern expressions of diverse musical landscapes.
For the first time in Serbia, at the very beginning of the festival, we will have the opportunity to listen to the acclaimed current project “Singer of Tales” by Damir Imamović (November 10), which has brought the artist several prestigious European awards. Also, the audience in Serbia will be able to listen live for the first time to the Moroccan-French attraction, the band Bab L’ Bluz (11.11), which combines the sound heritage of Morocco with rock, psychedelia, blues, but also socially conscious themes.
On the same evening, for the first time in Novi Sad, we will experience a completely different mix of tradition (Cyprus), rock and psychedelia at the performance of the increasingly popular Cypriot trio Monsieur Doumani. Their worldwide concert promotion of the latest album “Pissourin” is underway.
The concert part of the Pocket Globe will also be rounded off with a premiere in Serbia, which is probably attracting the most attention, given that it is Kayhan Kalhor, a top connoisseur of Iranian music and an extraordinary player of the kamanche, an ancient Persian instrument. Kayhan, who is among other things the winner of the prestigious “WOMEX Artist Award” (2019), will be joined on stage (12.11) by another exceptional artist and his longtime collaborator and friend, Erdal Erzincan, baglama player.
In addition to these four premieres, the concert program of the festival also includes two, in their own way, rare and tempting events. Boris Kovač New Ritual Ensemble from Novi Sad (10.11), in such a form and musical concept, we cannot often hear it. The inimitable atmosphere created by the music of this Boris’s ensemble was only hinted at at the Opening Ceremony of the European Capital of Culture, on January 13.
Another local band, the Belgrade-based Shira utfila, which celebrates its 22nd anniversary in 2022, was chosen to perform at Pocket Globe through the “Serbian Globe” festival call. These exceptional interpreters of the Sephardic heritage, gathered in a multinational and multi-confessional band, will perform in front of the Novi Sad audience after more than ten years, and the emphasis will be on the ninth album Las amores sefaradis.
In addition to the main concert program, Pocket Globe also offers three lectures (Youth Theater / Svilara Cultural Station), which will be held by some of the musicians. Members of the band Bab L’ Bluz, Yousra Mansour and Brice Bottin (11.11) will talk about the music of the Gnawa ethnic group, the role of women in Moroccan music, breaking stereotypes and the Nayda social movement. Damir Imamović will focus his lecture (November 12) on saz and the place of this instrument in the musical history of Sarajevo. That topic, which he has been dealing with for a long time, will soon be published in a book.
The very end of the Pocket Globe festival (November 13) will be marked by another valuable lecture, where Kayhan Kalhor will introduce us to the music of Iran, with a special reference to the term radif and its importance in improvisation.
Entrance to the lectures is free, while the ticket price for each concert evening is 800 dinars in advance, and 1000 dinars on the day of the concert. Tickets for the first night can be purchased through the Gigs Tix website, and for the second and third nights at the Youth Theater box office, with the possibility of online reservation.
The Pocket Globe festival was supported by: Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture, the City of Novi Sad, Sounds of Europe / Creative Europe and the French Institute of Serbia.