Old radio playing Slovenian music

The first thesis of the evening full of laughter was the peculiarity of Slovenian music which is as special as … It’s really special. Due to the quality of Slovenian music and the lack of serious analyses thereof, Lado Bizovičar tackled it himself. “When we started working on this performance, we asked ourselves, what the hell does Lado Bizovičar have to do with it. This is almost the same as if Martin Strel (Slovenian long-distance swimmer) would hold a lecture about hygiene in English,” the author commented on the beginnings of the comedy. He was joined on stage by Gašper Konec, playing a professional musician, and Miha Debevec, playing an unprofessional accordionist who tried to play the most autochthonous Slovenian instrument. The latter had problems with his performance because we discovered that the accordion is not really that popular despite its roots and that it is not used that often in Slovenian music (if you don’t count the ensemble Avsenik).

»Slovenian music is like Slovenian sport. When our musicians are placed into competitions everyone is proud. And this is actually the only resemblance because when they return from the competition nobody listens to them anymore. Unlike our sportsmen,” Bizovičar was philosophizing in front of a huge audience. Nobody was spared, every musicians was discussed and for a better understanding the audience was offered many a comparison, comment and even genuine performances. The actors on stage were put into roles of every Slovenian Latino-lover, hip-hopper, rocker or singer-songwriter, accompanied by videos, new lyrics and choreography. Sometimes they even had to calm down the boisterous audience to have a word!

Due to the long tradition and the high number of Slovenian musicians it was impossible to enfold everyone so the performers consulted with the audience. They even invented a test for testing the autochthony of Slovenian music. As the almost-never-performing accordionist proved, it is possible to play all Slovenian music on the accordion. The whole analysis was summed up by Bizovičar: “Listen to Slovenian music because it’s good and don’t eat mouldy pizza because it’s bad.” The performance delivered an important message saying that Slovenian music connects people. Because everyone was laughing at it – the ones who love it and the ones who don’t.

The exceptional comedy of Slovenian music was followed by the long awaited jam session evening which was ruled by the Slovenian Robert Ožinger quintet feat. Samo Ivančič. The boys who met during their studies abroad have been collaborating for many years and have visited and performed at the Festival. “We love to play in front of the Slovenian audience because it’s a special and very relaxed atmosphere,” said keyboard player Robert Ožinger at the jam session which was organized after the comedy. The young men were joined by the kaval virtuoso Theodosii Spassov, who was playing authentic Bulgarian music with his folk quintet at the Central stage.