Variety that inspires: “Todo Mundo” 2023 is over
The eleventh Todo Mundo festival was held in Belgrade at different locations from September 21 to 23, 2023. The program included five concerts, one DJ gig, an international conference and a public conversation with two members of the Hungarian group Erdőfű.
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The eleventh edition of the Todo Mundo festival was fully in line with the basic idea set at the very beginning, in 2012 – an intriguing and diverse concert and accompanying program, which corresponds to the challenge and diversity of the world music polygenre, an entertaining, artistic, research and educational approach, and close contact with the audience.
Although the campaign for the 11th edition started earlier than ever, the three days of the festival flew through us with great speed and intensity that gave a new, driving energy.
When it was announced at the end of 2022 that September 23 was chosen as the European Folk Day, we immediately started to plan performances for that day by two ensembles, which fit perfectly into the first celebration of this important date. We hosted both groups – Erdőfű (Hungary) and Janusz Prusinowski Kompania (Poland) thanks to the international project “Sounds of Europe”, in which our Ring Ring Association is a partner and part of a team with 12 other festivals from 10 European countries.
Then, during the arrangement of Bombino’s performance in Novi Sad (Pocket Globe festival), the possibility arose to arrange Vieux Farka Touré’s gig in Belgrade with the same agent. The concert of Alba Carmona was essentially discussed during a joint bus trip with her agent to Naples and the Napoli World festival.
When you make such a program, then imagine and ask yourself: “Does the audience in Serbia know these musicians? How popular is Vieux really or is it just known for his famous father Ali Farka Touré? Is flamenco popular enough to fill the hall? How attractive is the traditional music of Hungary and Poland to the local audience?”
It was awaiting its confirmation in September. Only two unknowns remained when we started the campaign: Which of the local artists to include in the programme and, of course, what the last-minute budget would be, that chronic pain of most events in Serbia.
We chose DJ Killo Killo, our internationally most famous world music DJ, fan and connoisseur of African music, as the local artist. We considered this as a more than appropriate solution for the continuation of the evening after Vieux Farka Touré’s concert, in the Zappa Baza club, with which we now cooperated for the first time.
That choice for the opening of the festival (September 21) turned out to be a complete success. The audience responded in large numbers, both younger and older, including several legends of Belgrade music journalism. All of them together confirmed that the music of Mali easily provokes all generations to dance. Despite all that, cooperation with a world star, as Vieux certainly is, was not at all complicated. Vieux and his musicians are polite, simple and cordial in their conversations with the media and the audience (we think they spent two markers signing records and discs).
The following evening (September 22), the return to our longtime venue, the Jewish Cultural Center, presented a new challenge. Will the two different audiences – flamenco lovers and accordion fans – completely be separated or will the quality and intriguing music make everyone stay in the hall for both concerts? And yes, to our joy, exactly the second thing happened. Belofour, the Austrian accordion quartet, also nailed the flamenco fans to the chairs, only for Alba Carmona and Jesús Guerrero to keep them there with ease, and finally get them back on their feet.
The European Folk Day itself was marked with several activities during the third, and last day of the festival (September 23). In addition to the evening performances of the groups Erdőfű and Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, good acquaintances from the international scene, during the day, another in the series of international music conferences, which we organize for the third year in a row as part of the Todo Mundo festival, was held in the RTS Club – Radio Belgrade Gallery.
The topic, quite appropriate “Tradition nowadays, in the World Music”, imposed itself, with the participation of experts, musicians, organizers and scholars from six European countries: Daina Zalāne, Márton Éri, Marija Dumnić Vilotijević, Alba Carmona, Janusz Prusinowski, Ana Sors, Mirjana Raić Tepić, Soma Salamon, Joanna Wiedro-Żak, as well as permanent hosts, organizers of the “Todo Mundo” festival, Marija Vitas and Bojan Đorđević.
In addition to this addition to the program, the festival, as in 2022 and 2016, in cooperation with the Department of Ethnomusicology of the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, offered a talk by Soma Salamon and Márton Éri with professors and students, on the topic of Hungarian traditional music, tanchaz, the heritage of Transylvania etc.
This time too, the volunteers contributed, and the media supported us quite strongly.
As it was every year, the freshly realized festival is the impetus for us to start creating the next edition and to attract a new and younger audience, but also to promote the festival all over the world, both at festivals, conferences, and through social networks.
