Festivalul Plai - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Festivalul Plai is a music festival taking place annually in Timişoara

Timisoara

Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. The festival is hosted by Muzeul Satului Bănăţean, an outdoors ethnographic

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

museum. Besides music, the festival promotes art and multiculturalism

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...

.
Other activities and workshops include theatre, film projections, painting, sculpture, photography, engraving

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

, dance, juggling

Juggling

Juggling is a skill involving moving objects for entertainment or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling, in which the juggler throws objects up to catch and toss up again. This may be one object or many objects, at the same time with one or many hands. Jugglers often refer...

, traditional arts and crafts (pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, weaving

Weaving

Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...

, wood carving

Wood carving

Wood carving is a form of working wood by means of a cutting tool in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation of a wooden object...

etc.), qigong

Qigong

Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...

, tai chi

Tai chi chih

Tai chi chih is a series of 19 movements and 1 pose that together make up a meditative form of exercise to which practitioners attribute physical and spiritual health benefits...

, and reading.
Partners of the festival include foreign cultural center

Cultural center

A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, or activist-run...

s (French, German, Polish, Czech and others), foreign embassies (Peru, Israel, Portugal and others) and local non-governmental organization

Non-governmental organization

A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

2011 lineup

Susana Baca

Susana Esther Baca de la Colina is a prominent Peruvian singer-songwriter; two-times Latin Grammy Award winner. She has been a key figure in the revival of Afro-Peruvian music within Peru....

Warsaw Village Band

Warsaw Village Band is a band from Warsaw, Poland, that plays traditional Polish folk music tunes combined with modern elements.- About the band :...

Idan Raichel

Idan Raichel is an Israeli singer-songwriter and a musician, known for his Idan Raichel Project , distinctive for its fusion of electronics, traditional Hebrew texts, Middle Eastern and Ethiopian music. Prior to the Project, Raichel was a keyboardist, collaborating with artists such as Ivri Lider...

Beefólk Forbidden City Chamber Orchestra Tündérground

2010 lineup

Mísia

Mísia is a Portuguese fado singer, born in 1955 in Porto, Portugal. Mísia is a polyglot. Despite singing mostly fado, she sings some of her themes in Spanish, French, Catalan, English and even Japanese...

Trilok Gurtu Christoph Pepe Auer Group

Ara Dinkjian

Ara Dinkjian is an Armenian-American musician. He is the founder of the band Night Ark. Ara Dinkjian is considered one of the top oud players in the world, his compositions have been recorded in thirteen different languages, which include the multi-platinum hit "Dinata", it was performed in the...

2009 lineup

September 11 (Day One):
Esma Redžepova

Esma Redzepova

Esma Redžepova is a Macedonian vocalist, songwriter, and humanitarian. During her life she has performed in more than 9000 concerts in 30 countries, with her late husband Stevo Teodosievski she has fostered forty-seven children, and she has received numerous accolades for her humanitarian work. By...

Sainkho Namtchylak

Sainkho Namtchylak is a singer originally from Tuva, a small autonomous republic in the Russian Federation just north of Mongolia. She is known for her Tuvan throat singing or Khöömei.-Style:...

Farfarello - Farfarello at Myspace Music Tomasz Bednarczyk - Tomasz Bednarczyk at Myspace Music

September 12 (Day Two):
Dobet Gnahoré

Dobet Gnahore

Dobet Gnahoré is a singer from the Côte d'Ivoire. She settled in Marseille in 1999 due to the Civil War. Her father Boni is a percussionist who performs with her. She was a nominee at the 2006 World music for Newcomer and shared an award for Best Urban/Alternative Performance with India.Arie at...

Kaloomé - Kaloomé at Myspace Music The Shin - The Shin at Myspace Music Christoph Auer - Christoph Auer official website Horia Crişovan, Teo Milea and Cristi Raţiu Trio

2008 lineup

Pannonia Allstars Ska Orchestra

Pannonia Allstars Ska Orchestra are a Hungarian ska band formed in Budapest, in 2003. The band's musical style has fused Jamaican-style ska and reggae with jazz melodies and elements of traditional Hungarian folk music....

Mariza

Mariza is the stage name of a popular fado singer. She was born Marisa dos Reis Nunes on 16 December 1973 in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique. At the time, Mozambique was known as the Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique....

Fanfare Ciocârlia

Fanfare Ciocarlia

Fanfare Ciocărlia is a popular twelve-piece Romani brass band from the northeastern Romanian village of Zece Prăjini. The band began as a loose assemblage of part-time musicians playing at local weddings and baptisms. In October 1996, the German sound engineer and record producer Henry Ernst...

Grigore Leşe - Grigore Leşe at last.fm Tarhana - Tarhana official website Hotel Palindrone - Hotel Palindrone official website Alvik - Alvik at Myspace Music Al Jawala - Al Jawala official website

2007 lineup

Paco de Lucia

Paco de Lucía

Paco de Lucía, born Francisco Sánchez Gómez , is a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist and composer. He is considered by many to be one of the finest guitarists in the world and the greatest guitarist of the flamenco genre...

Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...

Yungchen Lhamo

Yungchen Lhamo is a Tibetan singer-songwriter and currently living in exile in New York City. She has won an Australian Record Industry Association award for best Folk/World/Traditional album, and was then signed by Peter Gabriel's Realworld Record label.She has performed with Billy Corgan and...

Eldad Tarmu

Eldad Tarmu is a vibraphonist and composer born in 1960 in Los Angeles, California. He is currently a professor of Jazz Studies at the “Richard Oschanitzky” Jazz Faculty, Tibiscus University, in Timişoara, Romania.-Biography:...

Al Jawala - Al Jawala official website Pentatones - Pentatones official website Dullemajik - Dullemajik at Myspace Music Ternipe - Ternipe official website (Hungarian)

2006 lineup

Al di Meola

Al Di Meola

Al Di Meola is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin. With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date...

Gumbi Ortiz - Gumbi Ortiz official website Mircea Florian Shukar Collective

Shukar Collective

Shukar Collective is a Romanian musical group which fuses traditional Romany|Romanes and electronic music. It is especially known for using traditional rhythms employed by the Ursari section of the Roma minority with contemporary electronic sampling...

Blazzaj

Blazzaj is a Romanian Acid Jazz band founded in 1996 by Eddie Neumann and Florin Barbu as FunkinLeFree. Since August 1998 the band is known as Blazzaj...

Dixie Krauser Band

Agbeko Cultural Group - Agbeko Cultural Group

Eldad Tarmu

Chamber Jazz Ensemble Funky Train Nataša Milosavljević

Press

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jan/18/timisoara-Romania-arts-music-nightlife (article in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

; see Take in a festival)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.