“Best of” world music at the 25th Sziget Festival

On the occasion of celebrating the 25th Sziget the World Music Stage is bringing a “best of” program, which presents the greatest successes of the stage, but is also consistent with the aim to show the latest productions of world music. Day 0 starts with a Hungarian wave, and then the bests of world music are coming from the past and future. The full program of Sziget’s World Music Stage is available.

What: Sziget Festival
Where: Óbuda Island, Budapest, Hungary
When: 9-16 August, 2017

Over the past thirty years, ever since the collective term: world music widespread for the ethnic-based music it has become one of the most popular music trends. Bands and performers became well-known from countries of which you don’t hear about too often, and where – as the Cape Verde Islands and Madagascar – record industry did not exist.

Sziget World Music Stage takes the part in the world music movement since 2000 and at its current site it serves approximately fifteen thousand people. Over the past seventeen years, the stage has gained outstanding international ranking, since all the bests of the genre have performed on it, and because it constantly reacted sensitively to the new trends and waves of world music. More than two hundred artists have accepted the invitation, the world’s biggest stars from England to Guinea from Belgium to Senegal.

The world music venue providing carefree, fun “party music” pays special attention to the popular Balkan- and ska-based dance music performers, in addition to the world music stars, of course, presents the recently appeared fresh performers as well. In spite of the dance music dominance – without losing of the quality, professionalism or the ethnic features – it does not rule out the sensitive or experimental productions either.

From the returning performers might be highlighted: the Serbian Goran Bregovic – whose evergreens are spreading for decades as the anthems of the Balkans – as the front man of the inevitable Wedding and Funeral Band; the world’s only Grammy-winning klezmer band, the legendary Klezmatics; the elementary Russian ska classic, celebrating the twentieth year of its existence: Leningrad; the Moroccan Gnawa revolutionizing Orchestre National de Barbés; the king of Latin ska from Sicilí: Roy Paci & Aretuska; with its cathartic “ethno-chaos” the Ukrainian DakhaBrakha, the Malian Tamikrest who are changing desert blues into desert rock; and with its overwhelming Pan-African dance music the Mokoomba from Zimbabwe.