The annual Folkové Prázdniny (Folk Holidays) music festival gets underway in the south Moravian town of NámÄÅ¡Å¥ nad Oslavou on Saturday.
The week-long event takes place in the grounds of the townâs castle and features a broad selection of both international and Czech world and folk musicians. Ahead of the festival, I spoke to one of its organisers, Daniel Hejl.
âFolk Holidays is a festival of Afghan link to Seoul drug arrests ...
Infections 'the biggest NHS fear' ... world music, but not only world music. It takes place in the pretty city of NámÄÅ¡Å¥ nad Oslavou, quite close to Brno. Itâs full ofâ¦stars who are not known here in the Czech Republic but they are known all around the world. And we are trying to bring them hereâ¦â
This year who are you bringing to the festival?
âIâd like to mention Hazmat Modine, a fantastic band from New York, with some of the best New York musicians. Today they are people who are playing with Tom Waits, with Norah Jones, David Bowie. They did really, really well at the last Womex, which is a world music festival.
âThen thereâs Mark Geary, whoâs an Irish singer. Heâs a friend of Glen Hansard, [the late] Jeff Buckley, Damien Riceâ¦heâs the last of these four who didnât get famous, but in April he made a new album called Opium and it seems maybe now his time has come, so this could be one of the last chances where you can meet him playing by a fire and sing with him.â
Who in particular are you looking forward to seeing at this festival in NámÄÅ¡Å¥?
âI'm looking forward to Hazmat Modine. But as well what's really looking forward to is Tim Eriksen. He's a kind of 'reformer' of a music style called Sacred Harp, and it's really ancient, more than 200 years old. It's a style of singing without notes. It was done for people who can't read, and they wanted to sing together in America, songs in church. You could hear it in [the film] Cold Mountain - it was he who did itâ¦Heâs having workshops.
âThereâs David Evans as well. He has a Grammy, and I think if youâre looking for somebody who knows something about blues heâs the number one in the world. So heâs another big star we have.â
www.folkoveprazdniny.cz
(radio-Prague)
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