The 21st annual Lotus World Music and Arts Festival opens today at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater with musical performances specializing in folk music exclusively from Hungary and Italy.
Taking part in this kick-off performance is a lineup of worldwide musical acts such as Söndörgo, a group from Hungary, and Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, a group from Italy.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the main show at 7 p.m. The price of admission is $15 in advance and $20 on the day of the show.
The annual Lotus World Music and Arts Festival aims to celebrate the diversity, beauty and joy of music and arts from cultures around the world, according to the Lotus Festival’s official website.
Canzondiere Grecanico Salentino is a traditional music ensemble from Salento, Italy, that has been performing for nearly 40 years.
The group is a seven-member band and dancer that performs a contemporary style of Southern Italy’s traditional folk music, Pizzica and dance.
“We hope to give to the Lotus Festival participants a mesmerizing, impactful experience,” said Mauro Durante, the group’s bandleader. “The secret of our show is in the interaction with the audience. Not a frontal one, from the stage to the people, but a circular one, where everybody is protagonist. Singing, screaming, clapping their hands and of course dancing.”
Canzondiere Grecanico Salentino previously performed at the Lotus Festival in 2011, and Durante said they enjoyed it so much that they wanted to come back. He said it is “one of their favorite festivals all over the world.”
The group performs a mix of musical acts, including the frame drums, violin, bouzuki, classical guitar, harmonica, zompogna (Italian bagpipes), diatonic accordion, tamburello, vocals and dance.
The group members will be presenting their latest 2013 album, “Pizzica Indiavolata,” along with some surprise new material that will appear in their new album next year.
“We are considered a force in the Italian world music scene and are already at the second generation with the sons of the founders on scene,” Durante said. “We play old tunes with timeless meanings and new compositions with urgent lyrics and feeling, and we dance out their emotions.”
Another group that will take part in the Lotus Festival opening concert is folk ensemble Söndörgo from Szentendre, Hungary.
This band plays genre folk, world and Balkan themed music using a string instrument called the ?tambura.
According to the group’s official website, the group is known for playing a style of music that has been described by fans and critics as hugely attractive, but little known and quite different to the traditional, fiddle-led Hungarian repertoire.
They aim to foster and preserve Southern Slavic traditions of the Serbs and Croats as found in various settlements in Hungary.
The five-member group researches, arranges and performs in Balkan tradition.
They will perform material from their recent album “Tamburocket Hungarian Fireworks.”
The London Evening Standard says the group’s music “sparkles with virtuosity and foot-tapping joie de vivre and are proving themselves to be one of Europe’s most versatile and exciting bands.”
Söndörgo’s performance is sponsored in part by the IU Russian and East European Institute, Institute for European Studies and Department of Central Eurasian Studies.
Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino’s performance is sponsored in part by the IU Department of French and Italian and Institute for European Studies.
This music festival has had a high turnout by the Bloomington public for years, and Bloomington native Joseph Dominick is excited for this specific opening musical lineup due to its diversity in internationality with music.
“The Lotus Music Festival bringing in international a musical act like Söndörgo, is a must-see enjoyable experience for everyone,” Dominick said. “I have been attending the Lotus Festivals for years now, and it brings in some great diversity in music and artists each year giving people like myself a great earful of music I would’ve never heard had they not come to ?Bloomington.”
