World Fest is a festival organized by the Outhentic Foundation and is an ambassador for cultural diversity.
Photo credit: Marina Chamurkova
The first edition of the festival was held on July 10th and 11th 2019 with the financial support of the Plovdiv 2019 Foundation and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Bulgaria, and is part of the programme of Plovdiv European Capital of Culture 2019. The symbiosis of musical styles contributed to the enrichment of cultural life and conveyed to the audience a whiff of folklore tradition, and brought it into the world of the international music, with the basis of all compositions was improvisation. In the summer of 2019, in the heart of Plovdiv, on the stage of the Ancient Stadium of Philippopolis, passionate tango pieces were performed by the unique Tango Cats (Orlin Tsvetanov, Zornitsa Tsvetanova and Mladen Taskov), which were smartly combined with flamenco rhythms performed by the fusion DelPadre formation (Hristo Kolikov, Tsvetan Andreev, Simeon Leonidov, Zhivko Vasilev and Stoyan Yankulov-Stundzhi).
The folklore motifs, intertwined elegantly with the most sophisticated style, namely the jazz of the ethno-jazz group Outhentic, put the finishing line of this multi-genre celebration of culture. The folklore module captivated the music lovers and they called out for an encore the young musicians, who thanked them with an incredible medley of Bulgarian music, and the stage at the Plovdiv Roman Stadium became a general holiday of fun and for a short time everyone immersed themselves in the world of music and forgot about their troubles, sorrows and anxiety.
Photo credit: Marina Chamurkova
Yes, it is music that is a great power that can unite and rally us, and prove to us that there are no boundaries, ethnicities and races for it. The festival’s genre diversity contributed to the enrichment of cultural life and enabled the audience of more than 4,000 people for the whole festival to understand the role of tradition in music, as well as howfolk heritage from around the world is vocally and instrumentally combined with the most vibrant and diverse modern music styles, and how the symbiosis between them gives birth to new forms of art.
The beautiful music played at the festival was stimulated by the opportunity for the audience present to get acquainted with the history of the different genres presented by the performers who had so much to share from their rich musical creative biography. Fascinated by the experience, the guests of the cultural event presented the participants with countless unforgettable moments, which made them wish to repeat the festival in this form and with this concept of development.
Banda Del Padre playing at World Fest Plovdiv 2019
The first year of the festival enjoyed a large number of visitors, with the organizers prioritizing the presence of a young audience, so to speak, it is the young people who are our future and they will be the guardians and keepers of beautiful and aesthetic music. The successful conduct of the festival, as well as the interest shown by the citizens of Plovdiv and the guests of the city, gave hope to the organizers that they have found the right direction and should follow it. “To share the music, to see the audience that is involved with the music, and to see in the eyes of people the thirst for more and more is something incomparable” – the organizers of the festival share with us, for whom this is the beginning of cultural evolution and this should be the primary purpose of our generation, in order to leave a legacy to future generations and make it worth and valuable.