From stage to stage, from hall to hall, from tavern to tavern, we find ourselves dealing with graying hair
and realizing that we have also seen changes in the audience’s attitude at concerts, with generational
turnovers.
Folkest is not a festival capable of standing still: it is curious about the world and artistic experiences from
everywhere, which it seeks to propose with conviction and constancy. It is an open laboratory all year
round that often opens up to broad collaborations.
We look forward to seeing you!
A multi-ethnic region, rich in art and nature treasures.
Friuli Venezia Giulia has been a multi-ethnic region par excellence for centuries, where Friulians and
Resians, Ladins and Slovenians from the valleys of Torre and Natisone, together with High Germans
and Venetians, Julians and Slovenians from the Karst have lived and still live together.
Only in a region so rich in different cultural incentives could Folkest be born, a festival that in 46 years of
existence has offered audiences music without borders or definitions: from the Irish The Chieftains and
Miriam Makeba to Donovan, Fabrizio De André, Joan Baez with an Indian dancer, without forgetting
a Resian musician, Van Morrison, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield, as well as rhythms and colors from
Oceania and East Africa, the most remarkable and mysterious at a musical level.
However, it’s not just this cultural substrate that has ensured that the synergy between the regional area
and Folkest has developed in such a functional and rich way in terms of values. Villas, castles, ancient
squares, and hundred-year-old parks have, over the years, offered themselves as perfect settings for
staging spectacular concerts or more intimate events, moments of study and in depth exploration, seminar
and exhibition activities. All this has created a virtuous automatism that has indeed brought hundreds of thousands of Italian and European tourists to Friuli Venezia Giulia region (Austria, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland, as well as France, Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, Poland, and
even Finland and Denmark), but also – and perhaps above all – has strongly characterized internal
tourism, inviting residents in the region to better know their own homeland or place of residence.
The Folkest festival coordinates a national competition called the Alberto Cesa Award, which is
articulated through seven regional selections in various parts of Italy; it also integrates an award dedicated
to artists who have left an indelible mark on music and society throughout their artistic career.
It is the driving force behind www.folkbulletin.com, which has become over the years the portal of Italian folk
music on the internet, after over twenty years of activity in print as a monthly magazine.
It is part of two European projects aimed at promoting and enhancing music, cultures, minorities, and
traditions in Europe. The projects are UpBeat and European Folk Network. Above all, Folkest is a great
organizational machine that involves a significant number of people and things, animating different
economic sectors with great repercussions on regional activities and beyond.
Starting in 1996, the complete computerization of Folkest’s administrative services has allowed the
archiving of a series of data that constitute the festival’s operational heritage (for years prior to 1996, the
historical memory of the staff serves as a resource).
+39 0432 172 3158
+39 335 120 2124
info@folkest.com
