Viljandi Folk Music Festival´s detailed programme is now public. Green Stage is open to new artists
The 28th Viljandi Folk Music Festival published its detailed programme with exact concert times and venues. In addition to three open air stages and concerts in the Traditional Music Centre, also the Green Stage is added to the programme, open for performances of young talented traditional musicians.
According to Tarmo Noormaa, head of programming, it has always been part of the Viljandi Folk Music Festival´s DNA to offer possibilities to perform to young musicians. “Green Stage is where our next generation of Estonian folk music stars and heavy artillery comes from,” says Noormaa. The programme of the Green Stage is flexible and open to additions during the festival. The artists interested in performing on the Green Stage are welcome to contact the festival at artist@folk.ee.
The schedules for the rest of the venues is fixed by today and hopefully, there will be no noteworthy changes. New additions to the programme are Latvian group ZeMe and Get up the Wooden Hill from Ireland. “When making concert plans, it might be good for the audience to note that most of the foreign artists give two concerts during the festival,” says Tarmo Noormaa. “The festival days start at 2 PM and last after midnight: on Thursday until 2:30 AM, Friday and Saturday, when there are also afterparties with DJ-s, until 5 AM. On Sunday, “NÖEP goes folk” closes the festival, with the event ending a bit before midnight.” The opening event of the festival takes place on Thursday, July 22nd at 1 PM.
The 28th Viljandi Folk Music Festival, taking place July 22-25th, encompasses approximately 60 concerts by more than 50 artists from Estonia and abroad. The foreign artists include musicians from Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Latvia and Georgia. From Estonia, concerts by the folk music heavy artillery, new performers as well as special projects compiled for the festival can be enjoyed. The topic of the festival is “In Harmony”. Part of the festival is also a versatile programme of workshops.
This year, only festival pass or day pass enables access to the event. According to the head of tickets sales, Anu Rannu, there are a limited number of day passes available. The four day passes are sold out. “What comes to tickets, we would like to emphasize two aspects: firstly, for this summer´s festival also the passes of 2019 and 2020 festivals are valid, that were not used before and were transferred to this summer,” says Rannu. “Secondly, we have good news to pass owners who bought youth passes in previous years - if you did not use your pass then and turned 26+ in the meantime, you can still use your pass in 2021.”
28th Viljandi Folk Music Festival hosts up to 5000 people per day. Due to the new regulations for organizing cultural events in Estonia, the audience is not required to present a COVID certificate or testing on the spot.
Festival day passes are sold on the festival web page and Ticketer. The list of artists per days and programme with times and venues is also available on the festival web page.