The second Pocket Globe festival was held in Novi Sad, from November 9 to 11, 2023, at different locations. The program included six concerts, a workshop, a musician’s session, a presentation and two lectures.
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When the idea was conceived in 2021 to turn the series of concerts called “Pocket Globe” into a permanent festival event in Novi Sad, we announced that it would not be an action related only to the year of the “European Capital of Culture”. Because the world music festival is needed in Novi Sad, both because of the curious audience and the fact that members of a large number of peoples live together and very harmoniously in the city, and because of the extremely rich local music scene. In accordance with that idea, we have built a concept in which we are slowly including Novi Sad musicians, cultural workers, concert venues, the media, but also those young and the youngest people.
This year, a part of the city’s new cultural hub, SKCNS Fabrika, was chosen as the central concert venue. In the end, the choice turned out to be excellent.
Although this space may be famous as a place where rock or punk music is played, in cooperation with excellent sound technicians, we have enabled the audience to enjoy the concerts, which are world music, but with rock elements, as was the case on the first night, and turning space into the hall for real chamber concerts, which characterized the second evenings. Again, on the third evening, there was enough room for those who wanted to sit and enjoy the music, as well as for those who were driven to dance by the same music.
The organizing team, in cooperation with volunteers from Novi Sad, technicians, also with the help of friends of the festival and the understanding of the city’s institutions that reduced the prices of their services, realized second very successful festival, with six concerts, two lectures, one presentation, a musician’s session and a workshop.
Certainly the headliner of the festival was Bombino, an artist from Niger, whose latest album was released just two months before the festival and who included Novi Sad in the program of his European tour.
At the premiere concert in Serbia, Bombino showed how great an artist he is, but also a humble person, approachable for conversations with the audience after the concert.
The Belgrade-based band The Cyclist Conspiracy, who released their debut album for an Italian label a month before the festival, fit perfectly into the program of this first evening.
Although Bombino was the biggest name of the festival, the Czech artist Iva Bittova had the most intense contact with the audience. First of all, on the festival’s first day, during the workshop with members of the Children’s Opera Studio of the Serbian National Theatre created exceptional communication with the youngest and showed a desire to continue this cooperation. The children, together with their parents, the following evening, with the invitation of Iva and the organizers, came in large numbers to the concert, which introduced them and the large audience into an incredible atmosphere, at the end of which Iva Bittova and her collaborator Vladimir Vaclavek sang an encore together with the audience.
The second evening was opened by Serbian artist Jasna Jovićević (feat. Bojan Bojić), with the program “Illusion of Freedom”, premiered on this occasion. Before the concert, Jasna was awarded with the “Vojin Mališa Draškoci” award, which has been awarded for years by the World Music Association of Serbia to those artists who creatively combine tradition and world music with other musical genres.
On the last evening, the Slovakian group Nogaband, led by violin virtuoso and researcher Michal Noga, performed first, which was a great opportunity to hear traditional music performed in a very authentic way. Italian artist Stefano Saletti with his band Banda Ikona had the premiere concert in Serbia that evening, presenting Stefano’s vision of the Mediterranean, along with the story of the extinct Mediterranean language – Sabir. Saletti, on the same day, held a successful and well-attended lecture on this contact language in the Zenit bookstore.
In addition to the concerts and the aforementioned lecture and workshop, the festival included several additional events: the lecture “Rich and vital, old music of Slovakia” by Michal Noga in the Zenit bookstore (10.11), a session by Vladimir Vaclavek with local musicians at the Petrovaradin Fortress (10.11), as well as the presentation of the “Creative Europe – Culture” program in cooperation with the Creative Europe Desk Serbia, also in the Zenit bookstore (11.11).
