The ninth Todo Mundo world music festival ended on September 28, 2021, in the Belgrade club DIM. That evening, Dobrila and Dorian Duo and Jelena Popržan performed.
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.A few days ago, the ninth edition of the World Music Festival “Todo Mundo” in Belgrade ended. During four days, in addition to six great concerts at the DIM club, the international conference “Women in the world music – artists, managers, journalists…” was held, and the audience could also see an exhibition of photos of “Monika i Mazsi” by the Slovenian photographer Janez Marolt.
The conference, held in the RTS Club – Radio Belgrade Gallery, was absolutely “on trend” in terms of topic and participants. Marija Vitas, as moderator of the conference, by asking important questions, managed to start a serious debate and open several important topics.
Each of the participants (Sofia Labropoulou, Iva Nenić, Araceli Sanchez, Bojan Đorđević, Ivana Maraš, Svetlana Spajić, Sotiris Bekas, Rok Košir, Julijana Baštić and Giuseppe Bortone) gave their opinion on gender equality in the world music genre, presented the development of the scene and the role women in their countries, at the same time looking at some general issues, drawing attention to topics that are of great importance to everyone.
This conference was an excellent opportunity for participants to network, which will result in further cooperation. It is important to point out that Radio Belgrade Third Program recorded the entire course of the conference and will soon broadcast recordings from the conference. It is expected that this material will be offered to other radio stations through the EBU exchange.
When the Collegium Hungaricum Belgrade sent an email at the beginning of August with the information that it is possible to have a photo exhibition of one of the “stars” of the festival as part of the festival, it was a reason for enthusiasm. But also for thinking about where to display 22 large photos.
As the DIM club was a good solution for concerts, the choice of gallery space was facilitated by the offer of the owners of this club to have the exhibition in their nearby Kula Gallery, whose official opening is scheduled for the beginning of October. So, the exhibition before the official opening of the space!
Janez Marolt himself, the author of the exhibition “Monika i Mazsi”, a Slovenian photographer, decided to come in person, post the photos and open the exhibition.
The photos were taken in 2019 in Ljubljana, after the performance of Mónika Lakatos and Mazsi Mihály Rostás in Pinelina dnevna soba, a concert series that has been organized by Rok Košir in the family living room for years. So, by chance, it happened that the author of the photographs and the artists who were the inspiration, as well as the organizer of the Ljubljana concert, who encouraged the photographer to organize a photo session the next day in Ljubljana, were at the opening.
World music concerts in DIM are not a very common thing, but Todo Mundo is a festival that is different. The combination of the ninth edition of the festival and DIM was a great success, a good atmosphere was created, and many people came to the club for the first time in their lives and were delighted. The sound was excellent, there were places to sit and dance, and the musicians were within reach, so the contact was immediate and warm.
The local trio Rođenice opened the festival with their authentic and raw performance of traditional music, without “hits”. Modern approach, video projection, but singing that you rarely hear in cities. The Todo Mundo festival has given space to the performance of traditional music from the very beginning and will continue to do so in the future.
The long-awaited arrival of Monika Lakatos has finally come true. This modest woman with a powerful voice, accompanied by guitar and percussion, mostly performed songs of the Olah Roma from Hungary, predominantly energetic songs that invite dancing or at least dancing in the place. But the audience was swept off their feet by a ten-minute ballad in the middle of the concert.
On the first evening, two trios, and on the second evening, two duos. Sofia Labropoulou, a Greek composer and artist on the kanun, started the performance with her compositions, which touch on traditional music, improvisation, contemporary music, and was joined in the second part of the performance by the violinist and singer Tijana Stanković, and together they performed several songs from the Balkans.
The magic of the evening continued with a concert by singer Maria Mazzotta from the Italian region of Salento, accompanied by accordionist Antonino de Luca. A fantastic performance of her program “Amoreamaro”, with which she already toured the whole of Europe this summer.
After a day-off, the festival ended with two more concerts on September 28. However, before the concerts, the new issue of the world music magazine Etnoumlje was presented, and then the Vojin Mališa Draškoci awards were given to Jelena Popržan (for last year) and Dorian Jovanović (for this year). Since 2013, this award has been awarded by the World Music Association of Serbia together with the family of the late Draškoci.
Dobrila and Dorian Duo from Skopje are a new band of old fellow musicians. In Belgrade they presented a wonderful program of old chalgi and other songs, without exaltation. But the audience was excited, so an encore followed. Singer Dobrila Grašeska is a true revelation of the festival.
Although Jelena Popržan has already presented her solo program in Belgrade several times, she always manages to surprise with the maturity of her performance, lucid ideas, superb playing and singing, as well as wit. Fascinating.
Excellent concerts, great atmosphere, strong audience reactions, good networking of local and foreign festival guests, conference participants, managers, promoters, journalists… All that adorned the ninth Todo Mundo, makes us, the organizers of the festival and representatives of the Ring Ring Association, fulfilled and satisfied. giving us the “fuel” to prepare the next, jubilee, tenth Todo Mundo festival.