A two-day festival will be carried to us on the wind this weekend, when a number of bands showcase different musical traditions from around the world in celebration of music and a chance to come together.
The Windcraft Music Festival will be speaking musical volumes for the fourth year in the picturesque village of Katydata in the Nicosia district. The festival will make sure your weekend is jam-packed with concerts, workshops, screenings and parallel activities.
The festival will take us from European jazz and classical music to the brass sounds of the Balkans and the melodies of the Mediterranean, and from uplifting Afro-Brazilian rhythms to the gypsy paths of jazz manouche, “to confirm that different cultures can indeed co-exist,” according to the organisers, Windcraft Loud.
Saturday will begin at 4pm with circle singing with Aggeliki Toubanaki, a multitask vocalist. Her musical interests include jazz, folk scales and rhythms, as well as exploring vocal improvisation and extended sound techniques.
Up next at 5.30pm will be a screening of the documentary Karsilamas. The 90-minute documentary showcases findings from 16 trips to villages across Cyprus, in order to gather information regarding the island’s intangible heritage.
Anna Finessi will offer a dance workshop under the name The Dance of Life from 6.30pm until 7.30pm.
Things will get loud at 7pm when the Quintus Ensemble will take to the stage. The ensemble – Savvas Christodoulou (flute), Natalie Neophytou (oboe), Christiana Antonoudiou (clarinet), Annita Skoutella (French horn) and Evangelos Christodoulou (bassoon) – are known for taking their audience on a journey through the music of Manos Hadjidakis and other great Greek composers.
Next, there will be an acoustic narration of To Skasimon with Elena Agathokelous and Dimitris Spyrou, followed by a performance by Takoushis-Karapatakis Project – who are pianist Mario Takoushis and bassist Gabriel Karapatakis, who develop their music based on the fundamentals of contemporary European jazz – and jazz musician Andreas Polyzogopoulos at 9.15pm.
The last two performances of the day will be by the band Macumba at 10.30pm and Vasilis Vasiliou at 11.45pm.
Macumba are a Latin-jazz quartet that experiment with sound and seek to constantly evolve their own musical horizons and musical range. Vasiliou is a drummer, percussionist and composer from Larnaca.
Sunday starts early with a workshop on traditional crafts from 10am until 1pm. If traditional crafts aren’t your main interest, then maybe you will prefer the Winds in Balkan Music workshop for winds with Federico Pascuci.
Moving from workshops to lectures, acoustics consultant and teacher of acoustics and psychoacoustics Stefanos Ioannides will talk to us about room acoustics for musicians at 12.30pm.
Things get intriguing at 4pm when there will be a treasure hunt by the Youth Board of Cyprus, followed by a screening of the documentary The Cypriot Fiddler by Nicoletta Demetriou. The documentary gives us a glimpse into the life of old-style traditional fiddle players.
After the screening, there will be an interactive narration with Dimitris Baslam, and then the day will continue with concerts.
Giannis Koutis will take to the stage at 7.30pm with his oud, followed by the Windcraft Band and Italian saxophonist Federico Pascucci at 8.45pm. The Hot Club of Cyprus follow at 10pm with their gypsy jazz, and the festival will come to a close when the Greek band Toubanaki and The Buzz Bastardz – who marry traditional and contemporary music together with a feel of the Balkans – will give us a performance to remember at 11.15pm.
Windcraft Music Fest 4
Musical festival. August 12-13. To Chani tou Stavrinou, Katydata. 10am. €20 (two days) €15 (for one day). Tel: 22-377748
