Six music groups from seven different countries and five different national cuisines - the world music festival "Porta" promises to pamper all music connoisseurs' senses on August 20th this year at the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia.
Most likely, this summer's concerts will go down in the more than twenty-year long history of the world music festival "Porta" as the most ambitious and extensive program in one day so far. The listeners will finally be able to see on the stage of the festival the Finnish band "Wimme & Rinne", a pure fusion of Sami yoik and electronic and experimental jazz and also the energetic music storytellers of the French-Italian group "Lalala Napoli". The performance of both groups was already scheduled last October at the music hall "Daile" in the traditional autumn concert of the festival, but it had to be postponed due to the pandemic.
At this year's festival, with a new concert program "CENTERWISE" and at the same time with an unprecedented vocal acrobatics, Latvian singer Ieva Kerevica together with a band will introduce her newest work of art. Indian mantras, classical music quotes combined with themes of Latvian folk songs, interpretations of Libyan and Latgali folk songs, freejazz vocal means of expression will intertwine in her performance.
The "Yemen Blues" association "brings" cultural music of the new age to Latvia from Israel, which combines Yemeni, West African, blues, funk and jazz rhythms, while the vocals are reminiscent of ancient Arabic chants. But the Hungarian duo ¡Nosnach, with the help of improvisation, promises to lead the audience along non-existent, yet familiar musical paths at the same time. A few days ago, "Slatucada", messengers of Moroccan culture and African rhythms, who combine capoeira, dance and percussion on stage, agreed to participate in this year's festival. In addition to the variety of music, festival visitors will have the opportunity to get to know and taste the traditional flavors of Italian, French, Israeli, Finnish, and Hungarian national cuisines.
Since 1999, the world music festival "Porta" has been promoting world music in Latvia, inviting musicians from various countries and continents to perform in Riga and other Latvian cities, skillfully combining the traditional and the modern, the authentic and the different, the untamed in their sound. In previous years, local musicians such as Ralfs Eilands, Shipsea, Intars Busulis, Laima Jansone, Raimonds and Oskars Petrauski, Sniedze Prauliņa, Kristīne Kārkle-Kalniņa, etc. have performed at the festival.
Tickets to the festival can be purchased at the "Biļešu paradīze" box office and on the website bilesuparadize.lv. The world music festival "Porta" is organized by the association "Pasaules muzika" with the support of the State Cultural Capital Fund, Riga City Council, the Embassy of Israel and the French Institute. Together with partners "Viljandi Folk Music Festival" (Estonia) and "Good Music Live" (Lithuania), "Porta" festival organizes concerts of "DakhaBrakha" (Ukraine) and "LaLaLa Napoli" (France/Italy) groups in all three Baltic countries.