GANDUSIANA 2009
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The Gandusiana Project, started in October of 2007, evolved this year for the first time into a summer festival of quality and diverse music
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The Gandusiana Project, started in October of 2007, evolved this year for the first time into a summer festival of quality and diverse music. During the middle of July, Rovinj thus offered numerous fans of avant-garde and non-conventional music, i.e. to music connoisseurs, concerts and reasons to visit the town of St Euphemia. Another piece of news is that this Festival served as a connection point between the Public Open University, as the initiator and organiser of the project, and the employees of the Istrian Book Fair. Dalibor Talajić, a painter from Rovinj, expanded the event from mere good music and quality publishing by exhibiting his black and white photographs shot during the winter concerts at the theatre in the Adriatic cafe, which made the festival crowd flock to see them.
The programme itself, composed of several concerts, took place at different locations – on the isle of St Catherine, in the theatre ‘Antonio Gandusio,’ and on the summer stage Monte. The Festival was opened at Catherine’s by Mia Zabelka, a Vienna violin player, a composer and performer of improvised and experimental electro-acoustic music, performing, followed by Zahra Mani, a musician from Pakistan living in Great Britain. During the same evening, the Austrian Christian Fennesz played as well, famous for his peculiar music. Given that the Festival had own production, the opening saw a joint performance by the accordion player Bratko Bibič, drummer Pavel Fajt and violin player Mia Zabelka. It was already during the following evening that a performance by the Rundek Cargo Orchestra was organised at the summer stage Monte, which, as expected, gathered numerous fans of the former cult Haustor band, which had Rundek as its front man. The concert itself was preceded by a DVD screening of ‘Apocalypse’ by Boris Kovač, which is one of the four best DVD editions in 2008, as held by German reviewers. The third Festival day featured the promotion of a book by Darko Rundek ‘Uhovid’ (Durieux, Zagreb), where, apart from the author, Svetlana Spajić and Nenad Popović participated, with a screening of the documentary film ‘A Step Across the Border’ by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel in the theatre, a footage on the British guitar player, composer and improviser Fred Frith. Next came the screening of another documentary – ‘Šaban’ by Miloš Stojanović on Šaban Bajramović, the greatest Balkan Gypsy music star. The summer stage Monte also had Svetlana Spajić and Dario Marušić giving a lecture on ‘Traditional Singing Styles.’ A performance by Pavel Fajt, one of the most prominent musicians on the Czech alternative rock scene in mid-80s which was to follow, was rescheduled for the last Festival day due to rain, while the Slovenian Brina band, led by Brina Vogelnik, held their concert during the morning hours.
On the day before the final Festival day, the Monte stage featured the Hungarian Romano Drom, who play the so-called Olah Gypsy music, and the Albanian Fanfara Tirana band, composed of members of the former Albanian Army. The Festival ended with three concerts on Monte. Along with Pavel Fajt, Delta Saxophone Quartet, founded in 1984 to present British and international music, performed as well, as well as a few musicians held together by the Dondestan the Wyatt Project. The concerts by the latter two bands were dedicated to Robert Wyatt, because this year’s Gandusiana had ‘Going Too Far’ as its motto – a verse by R. Wyatt.
