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Guca 2008 |
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Welcome to Guca Trumpet Festival - the wildest music festival on earth!
It is a cacophonic and crazy brass band festival that takes place every summer in the tiny Serbian town of Guca in the western region of Dragacevo. The Guca trumpet festival (pronounced GOO-cha) , also known as the Dragacevo Assembly, is an annual trumpet festival held in the western Serbian town of Guca. Over 500.000 people ( from Serbia but also from Mexico, Denmark, Germany, China, UK, Spain, Greece and many other close or distant countries) make trip to the town of 2000 people to be treated to the crazy sounds a trumpet can only make in Guca, in what is called Dragacevo music, named after the Serbian region it was born in. The music played is diverse and ranges from traditional folk music to more modern adaptations, but the style of play is uniquely Dragacevo. The rhythm, adrenalin rushing energy is incredibly infectious and addicted as exhibited by the dramatically increasing number of youths from around Europe attending the festival.
The musicians, unbelievably, are largely self-taught and play spontaneously and by ear which gives the music an exciting undercurrent. But it is away from the main stage, in the bars, restaurants and catering tents that the action really takes place. As entire pigs and sheep rotate on spits above open fires, the bands target the customers, swooping on tables and blasting the diners with a cacophony of sound. The audience shows its appreciation by plastering Serbian dinar notes on the sweat-streaked foreheads of the musicians. It goes on late into the night, and starts again first thing in the morning.
Rumor has it that in the space of a few days, revelers at Guca consume three tons of bread, 50 lorry loads of cabbage, a quarter of a million servings of meat and three million liters of beer. As an internationally recognized trumpet capital, and a singular corner of positive energy, a place with accumulated joy, gaiety and spontaneity, coupled with the piercing yet gentle sound of the trumpet, Gucha is a place of catharsis of the heart and soul while the festival lasts. Guca Festival visitor Miles Davis said: "I didn't know you could play trumpet that way." And who would know better than he? This year's festival runs August 6th to August 10th 2008. |
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