Trio Balkan Strings, photo provided by organizers
The International Folk Music Festival "Mikołajki Folkowe" – the first folk music festival in Poland, organized every year since 1991, and one of the biggest and most famous in the country.
The Festival takes place in the Academic Culture Centre of Maria Curie–Skłodowska University in Lublin, with about 200 performers and 25 hours of music. The Festival consists of: usually 10 concerts on three stages including a concert - competition for young and debuting artists – "Open Stage" (the first and one of the two competitions for amateur artists playing folk music in Poland), film presentations, artistic workshops (playing instruments, dancing, singing, handicraft), theatre performances, visual arts exhibitions, meetings with film directors and authors of books, etc. Over 2000 artists from 25 countries (e.g. Italy, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Pakistan) have performed at the Festival so far.
Due to an interesting and diversified programme and the atmosphere of a "folk feast," "Mikołajki Folkowe" has gained an opinion of an important cultural event, as well one of the most interesting and prestigious festivals of this kind of music in Poland. It has also won a large and dedicated audience from all over the country and from abroad.
Organiser: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University and the Association of Folk Culture Animators
Programme
This event is part of Attention Culture!, the Cultural Programme of the 2011 Polish EU Presidency.