The second edition of the world music festival Pocket Globe will be held in Novi Sad, at SKCNS Fabrika, from November 9 to 11, 2023. The program will include concerts, lectures and workshops.
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One of the youngest musical genres, world music, is gaining more and more fans in Serbia as well. Every year a new festival emerges that gives local musicians the opportunity to present themselves, and the audience – to hear and see big names from the world scene.
“Pocket Globe” started as a series of concerts, which will grow into a festival in 2022. Last year’s edition showed that Novi Sad needs this kind of event.
A large audience, great concerts and lectures – what better fuel is there for the organizers to continue with their plan to make the world music festival in Novi Sad a regular annual meeting place for musicians, audience and experts?
In accordance with the name, this year the festival will also present musicians from different meridians, and already on the first evening at SKCNS Fabrika, a big name, Bombino, will perform with his quartet. The music created by this prominent artist from Niger is the essence of “desert blues” – the instruments are all the same as in America, the cradle of blues, but the sound is from the origin of blues, West Africa and its Saharan part.
At his premiere performance in Serbia, Bombino will also promote the new album “Sahel” (Partisan Records, 2023).
The very opening of the festival, before the performance of Bombino, belongs to the Belgrade band The Cyclist Conspiracy, who can also boast of a fresh album, “Mashallah Plan” (Subsound records, 2023).
After an interestingly conceived, energetic opening, the festival continues the next evening with two top authors. Local and increasingly international Jasna Jovićević, multi-instrumentalist and composer, will perform a solo program largely dedicated to the legendary professor Vojin Mališa Draškoci (1945 – 2000).
Then, accompanied by bassist and guitarist Vladimir Vaclavek, another great name of the world scene will perform, Iva Bittova, a violinist, singer and composer from the Czech Republic.
Iva is coming to Novi Sad again after 12 years, and this time, for the first time in Serbia, with her decades-long friend, fellow compatriot and collaborator Vaclavek, with whom she released the acclaimed album “Bílé Inferno” (Indies Records), which is experiencing a new, a different concert performance.
In addition to the joint concert, Iva and Vladimir will hold two separate workshops within the festival, bringing the festival closer to a wider Novi Sad audience, as it was intended during the development of the idea of a world music festival in Novi Sad. Several more musicians will have their lectures or workshops at the festival, about which there will be more information soon.
The last evening in the SKCNS Fabrika will be opened by Nogaband, a Slovakian group led by the phenomenal violinist and researcher of traditional music Michal Noga. It will be Slovak traditional music in the best light – with dancing, enthusiasm and openness!
For the end of the festival, the organizers left one of the biggest names of the rich Italian world music scene, Stefano Saletti, who will perform with his quintet Banda Ikona. What the audience expects is the music of the Mediterranean, evoked through the Saletti’s composer’s prism, but also singing in the extinct language of the Mediterranean – sabir.
Tickets for the festival can be purchased through the gigstix website. The price of an individual ticket is 1,500 dinars for the first evening, or 1,000 dinars for the second and third evening, while the price of a complete set of festival tickets is 3,000 dinars.
The festival was supported by: City of Novi Sad, international project “Sounds of Europe” (supported by Creative Europe), Ministry of Culture of Serbia, Italian Institute for Culture in Belgrade, French Institute, Slovak Arts Council, World Music Association of Serbia. The organizer is the Ring Ring Association in partnership with the Music Information Centre of Serbia.
