Conference speakers
Saturday, September 23, 2023 / 11 a.m.
RTS Club – Radio Belgrade Gallery (Hilandarska 2, entrance from Svetogorska)
The conference is organized with the support of the Ministry of Culture. Radio Television of Serbia and Radio Belgrade 3.
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• DAINA ZALĀNE
(LATVIA)
Daina Zalāne (promo photo)
DAINA ZĀLANE has been active in managing different folk music projects for more than 20 years. She is founder and manager of the NGO Culture Management Centre Lauska, and runs a folk music label with more than 100 releases from authentic roots music to contemporary world music. The NGO is also partnering in different European funded projects, organising musician exchanges and enabling creative co-operations between artists from different countries and diverse spheres. Daina is programming director of the international Valmiermuiža Ethnomusic Festival in Latvia. She is expert in different international funding bodies and Member of the Board of the European Folk Network.
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• ÉRI MÁRTON
(HUNGARY)
Éri Márton (promo photo)
ÉRI MÁRTON is a musician from Budapest. As the son of Péter Éri, a folk musician, ethnographer, and a member of the distinguished band Muzsikás, Márton was drawn from an early age to the folk music and dance of Hungarians and neighbouring peoples. As early as the nineties of the 20th century, as a young man, he did fieldwork in Transylvania, in the village of Mera in the Kalotaszeg region, and there he got to know firsthand the traditional music of this region. There he also met his musical role models, who will determine his destiny and professional life. Marton plays the viola and three-stringed viola and has been a member or collaborated with numerous artists and bands on the Hungarian traditional music scene, and is very active as a player in táncház events. Today he is a member of the Enyedi Ágnes Band, the Magos group and the increasingly popular ensemble Erdőfű.
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• MARIJA DUMNIĆ VILOTIJEVIĆ
(SERBIA)
Marija Dumnić Vilotijević (detail/photo: Duško Vukić)
MARIJA DUMNIĆ VILOTIJEVIĆ holds an MA and PhD in ethnomusicology from the Faculty of Music of the University of Arts in Belgrade, and she has been employed at the Institute of Musicology SASA since 2011. During her studies, she specialized in similar institutions of Austrian and Bulgarian Academies of Sciences. She currently serves as the Chair of the Research Archives Section of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives and as IASA Ambassador in Serbia, as well as the Vice-Chair of ICTM Study Group for Audiovisual Ethnomusicology. She is a Principal Investigator from Serbia on the project Exploring the Tracks of Balkan Culture: Serbian–Turkish Connections in Music and Dance from Ottoman Period until Today (TRackeRS). Her research of Serbian and Balkan folk and popular music practices is based on archival and field work, with musical and contextual analysis; and she uses historical, urban and applied ethnomusicology. Her book Sounds of Nostalgia: History of Old Urban Music in Serbia (2019, in Serbian) was awarded by the Institute of Ethnography SASA. She is currently doing research on the music and dance of migrant communities in Serbia, as well as on sound archiving.
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• ALBA CARMONA
(SPAIN)
Alba Carmona (promo photo)
ALBA CARMONA is one of the most exciting voices of traditional and flamenco music in Spain. She was born in Catalonia, but her parents are from Malaga, which is why she was exposed to flamenco dance and song from an early age. In her 18-year long career, she was a member of recognized flamenco and jazz groups, collaborating with artists such as Perico Sambeat, Chano Dominguez, Mauricio Sotelo and others. As a singer, she participated in the famous musical Flamenco Hoy! directed by Carlos Saura, as well as in some other well-known artistic projects. After working with the famous band Las Migas, she began a solo career, deepening and expanding her sincere interest in the folk music of the Mediterranean and the traditional music of Latin America. In 2022, she was nominated for the Spanish music award Premios Odeón for Best New Flamenco Artist. She also works in a duo with her husband Jesús Guerrero, an outstanding Spanish flamenco guitarist. Alba’s current repertoire of her own compositions stemmed from the richness of the oral tradition, absorbing a wider spectrum of Spanish folk and traditional music as well as the heritage of other cultures.
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• JANUSZ PRUSINOWSKI
(POLAND)
Janusz Prusinowski (promo photo)
JANUSZ PRUSINOWSKI is a fiddler, who also plays the dulcimer, Polish accordion and the hurdy-gurdy; he is a singer and a composer as well. He learned to play from village musicians and was an early pioneer of the traditional village music revival in Poland. Janusz has played in various bands, and is a co-founder of the House of Dance Association (1994). In 2008 he established the Janusz Prusinowski Trio, which later became the Kompania. Over the years he has performed innumerable concerts throughout Europe, as well as in Africa, Asia and North America, played at hundreds of dance events and sung at numerous church fairs. Together with his wife Kaja he runs the Play by Ear children’s theatre; they also compose songs and lullabies. The author of an educational programme, he leads singing and fiddle-playing workshops. He has organized numerous cultural events and has been the artistic director of the Mazurkas of the World festival for 15 years. In 2014, he was honored with the Gloria Artis Bronze Medal for Merit to Culture, in 2015 with the annual award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the field of folk culture, and in the same year he was nominated for the C.K. Norwid Mazowieckie Voivodeship Local Government award in the music category. In 2021, he was named a member of the Hall of Fame of the Transglobal World Music Chart – as a figure of particular merit in the field of world music.
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• ANA SORS
(GREAT BRITAIN/SPAIN)
Ana Sors (promo photo)
ANA SORS is founder and director of Salto Music Productions. Avid music explorer. She represents and tours traditional and alternative music artists from Latin America and Spain. Ana is also involved in producing concerts and creating music encounters. Based between Spain and the United Kingdom. She loves connecting with different cultures and fostering multicultural relationships in the music industry.
. . .
• MIRJANA RAIĆ TEPIĆ
(SERBIA)
Mirjana Raić Tepić (photo: Marko Dubovac)
MIRJANA RAIĆ TEPIĆ completed primary and secondary music school, and then studied ethnomusicology at the music department of the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad. She is the founder and member of the a cappella ensemble Rodjenice, which performs traditional songs from the area of the former Yugoslavia. Since 2010, she has been employed at the Ballet School in Novi Sad at the Folk Dance Department as a teacher of vocational subjects. She is also active in the field of improvised and experimental music, collaborating with prominent composers and artists from the country and the region. She is one of the authors of the dance performance Melting Pot, created in collaboration with the National Ensemble of Folk Dances and Songs of Serbia “Kolo”. She is the author of two Handbooks for the subject of Ethnomusicology, which was implemented with the support of the Provincial Secretariat for Education. These are the first handbooks of this type in the field of ethnomusicology in Serbia.
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• SOMA SALAMON
(HUNGARY)
Soma Salamon (promo photo)
SOMA SALAMON is a folk musician, ethnomusicologist and lecturer at the Folk Music Department of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Since the age of 14, Soma has been collecting folk music and playing different types of folk flutes from the Carpathian Basin area. As his main role model, Soma singles out Hodorog András, a Hungarian folk flutist from Moldova. Soma has been playing the accordion since 2007, and since he has developed into a wide-ranging performer as well as an exemplary researcher, during the last ten years he has performed in various ensembles dedicated to folk music, including Erdőfű. In addition to the numerous concerts he has performed in the country and abroad, Soma also promotes Hungarian folk music in his regular lectures, master classes and guest lectures. His wife, Ágnes Enyedi, is a distinguished singer of traditional Hungarian music.
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• JOANNA WIEDRO-ŻAK
(POLAND)
Joanna Wiedro-Żak (photo: M. Jagnus)
JOANNA WIEDRO-ŻAK started her musical journey in 2012 when she fell in love with the wild music from the heart of Poland. She now manages some of the leading Polish folk bands, while running the Wodzirej music agency (since 2014) and cooperating with Mazurkas of the World Festival. Wodzirej music agency (Wodzirej in Polish: Master of Ceremonies) is an agency and a label that brings together the most important bands of the ethnic scene in Poland – from closest to wild improvisational playing of village masters (Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, Tęgie Chłopy) to avant-garde or classical approach to tradition (Tuleje, Maniucha & Ksawery, Michał Żak & Aleksander Dębicz). For over 10 years Joanna has been organizing and coordinating concerts and tours in Poland and abroad, including Japan (2019 with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, in cooperation with mplant.com) and USA. While exporting and showcasing Polish musicians abroad she also brought some international artists to Poland. In 2021 she was a part of the production team of MUJI 26th music album with Polish traditional music. In 2022 she was on the jury of the WOMEX as Womex Samurai.
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• MARIJA VITAS
(SERBIA)
Marija Vitas (photo: Theodor Vitas)
MARIJA VITAS is an ethnomusicologist, music critic, journalist, researcher, magazine and portal editor, festival organizer and selector. Graduated from the Faculty of Music in Belgrade (2006). Since 2012 she is editor-in-chief of Etnoumlje world music magazine, writing often for other Serbian and foreign media, and doing some radio shows as well. She is a member of the Transglobal World Music Chart and the founder and administrator of the Balkan World Music Chart. As a member of the World Music Association of Serbia, Marija led many field research projects. Marija often writes liner notes for albums by different artists, and prepares promotional texts and EPKs for bands. She is a president of Ring Ring Association which has been a partner in several international projects to date. She is involved in 3 festivals organized by Ring Ring: Ring Ring, Todo Mundo and Pocket Globe. She is the author of the book The Musical Heritage of Vranje (2020) released with UNESCO’s support. Muzika Klasika magazine chose her as the Best Music Critic in Serbia in 2019.
