Festival Lent 2024

Stash Rudolf
Jul 13, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Jul 23, 2024

Lent from the new wooden bridge. — Maribor, Lent

I have a few events in my mind that I have to write a blog post about, but this can’t wait. Another summer started and another Festival Lent has taken place. And Festival Lent 2024 was an event well worth writing about. The people behind the festival have again done their jobs exceptionally well. Everything from organisation of the main and side events, to marketing, providing accompanying activities, workshops, facilities for young and old. Everything was spot on. Even the weather was more or less playing along with just an occasional shower. The parts of the festival that I personally like and wait for the most are Folkart and JazzLent. Folkart is the foundational element of the Festival Lent as it all started with Folkart 36 years ago. All the other parts came along in the years that followed. My next favourite part of the festival is JazzLent where we can witness usually five concerts of top Jazz musicians from all over the world. This edition saw a programme that is going to be hard to top. It all started with Alfredo Rodriguez Trio, continued with Ilhan Ersahin’s Istanbul Sessions, Fatoumata Diawara and Festen: Replicant, and ended with Sonido Gallo Negro.

Since the festival takes place at the end of June in Maribor I have to do some “travel gymnastics” to be able to attend all the events I want and enjoy the festival to the fullest possible way.

My odyssey (when I say MY odyssey, I mean the odyssey of me and my family, may it be my wife, or my sons) started on Tuesday since I had no time to go to Maribor on earlier days of the festival. A walk around Maribor is always nice, especially during the festival days as there are things to see or attend everywhere and all the time. Relaxing in the town park and a mandatory tea in the tea house near the park are a perfect segue into the pinnacle of the night. Pinnacle of the Tuesday night being the gig of Alfredo Rodriguez Trio. Alfredo is a Cuban pianist who fascinated Quincy Jones with his technique. When the concerts started at the well known Minority stage, we all knew why Mr Jones was so moved by Alfredo. It was a night of outstanding performance of soul touching music. Alfredo is a musical genius with an astonishing technique and intensity that even he himself cannot sit still on the piano bench. First day delivered more than it promised and it wasn’t hard to drive back home in the middle of the night.

Alfredo Rodriguez Trio

The next day I took our motorhome and my son to the festival. We arrived in Maribor with plenty of

time to relax at the tea house and see a short part of Folkart at the main square. On Wednesday afternoon the groups from India, Montenegro and Panama executed a small part of their performances. The groups do their whole performances at the opening and closing ceremonies of Folkart.

India

Montenegro

Panama

Those ceremonies unfortunately overlap with the concerts I have already bought tickets for and wanted to attend. So I had to do with these shortened acts. I am not all that into folk dancing or singing, but seeing groups sing, dance and play instruments with such enthusiasm and elation is really joy. And top that with groups from a bit more exotic places and you’ve got a treat for eyes, ears and soul. The performances were again an excellent intro to the even later in the evening. The description of the event was for sure not far from what we experienced. We attended a gig of some of the best musicians from Turkey who filled our ears with “fusion” jazz and stirred even the most ‘unstirrable’ of us. Another even that delivered more than not only promised, but also wished for.

Ilhan Ersahin's Istanbul Sessions

Staying the night in Maribor meant that I didn’t have to drive home in the middle of the night and had a pretty good night sleep. A Thursday morning walk through the park, a stop the tea house, having lunch and easy early afternoon was a great prelude to what was planned for the late afternoon and evening.

The second part of the Folkart at the main square was again a pleasure to witness. We saw groups from Portugal, South Korea and New Zealand. I was more or less speechless because of the vivacity and passion that was put into the performances.

New Zealand

Portugal

South Korea

My wife joined me for the evening concert of Fatoumata Diawara, an African singer and guitar player said to be one of the most important African divas. Her performance was full of emotion, passion and style. She plays with excellent musicians so the gig was again treating our ears, eyes and hearts. No words can describe feelings after such an event. You have to attend such performances to see how creative, beautiful, warm and expressive people can be. Full of emotional imprints we drove back home and left the motorhome and my parents in Maribor.

Fatoumata Diawara

I returned on Friday afternoon with my wife. We swapped a car for the motorhome and headed to the park. There is always something going on there and first we witnessed another performance of the Indian folk group.

Art Kamp

This act was a bit different than the one they did at the square the other day, and being done in the park setting it was again beautiful to watch and listen to. We strolled around the park and enjoyed the Friday vibe some more. Later in the aft we headed towards the stage of the concert we were going to see and on our way had dinner from one of the food trucks temporarily stationed at the River Drava bank. What awaited us at the Minority stage was a gig of a French group called Festen. They performed music from Stanley Kubrick’s movies especially ‘Blade runner’. It was a great journey into the once thought of as future time with excellent musicians and sound. However, the night didn’t end there. On our way to our bedding (our motorhome stationed on the other side of Maribor we stumbled upon a gig of a Serbian collective called ‘Škofja Loka’. They uplifted the audience with their energetic music and performance. Now we were ready to go to bed.

Festen: Replicant

Škofja Loka

The plan for Saturday was simple. We wanted to see another performance of folk groups, this time all the groups performed at the main square. They did more or less the same acts as before, but this time they were all there. And the plan for the evening was a gig that should be a culmination of JazzLent 2024. All that happened outside of that was a big plus. We started the day easy with breakfast, coffee and tea.

Folk Art

Folk group performance was and very memorable, the relaxing time in the park was needed and again before the last concert of this edition of Festival Lent we stumbled on an ongoing gig of a Slovenian duo called Romachild.

Romachild

I have never heard of this duo, but they pleasantly surprised us with full bodied performance that wasn’t expected from the duo. The culmination of the festival was on one stage the closing of the Folkart which we couldn’t attend as it overlapped with a concert we planned on seeing, so we have sent our son and his girlfriend there. They’ve enjoyed it very much. The other event that meant that the festival is drawing to an end was a concert of a Mexican group called Sonido Negro Gallo who worked on multiple sensory inputs of the audience. It was worth the place and the time of the festival, although I would say it lacked the punch, but maybe it was just me getting tired after five days of festival time and maybe I needed just something punchier.

All in all the Festival Lent 2024 was a testimony of hard work and dedication of people behind it. Especially the programme director of JazzLent David Braun, who created a ‘setlist’ of performers that is going to be hard to beat.