f46 The Ethno Virus
From Sweden to Australia, Croatia to Uganda, young musicians gather for the joy of learning and playing the folk music of their different cultures together. Andrew Cronshawintroduces the Ethno camps phenomenon.
T
here’s a virus that’s been spreading rapidly round the world since its outbreak in Sweden over two decades ago. Particularly affecting people
aged between late teens and late 20s, it’s transmitted by the playing of folk music and is proving highly contagious.
I first came across its effects in Estonia
in 2007. At Viljandi festival the shows by Chilean singer-guitarist-fiddler Nano Stern were attracting ever-larger audiences. When I caught a show, it was clear that indeed he’s a magnetic, charismatic per- former, who since then has become a major figure at home in Chile and increas- ingly abroad, but why such flocks of Esto- nian youth? I was told, “Oh, there was the Ethno Estonia camp here last week, and he was one of the leaders.”
A year later, at Bingsjö Spelmansstäm- man in Sweden’s Dalarna, there was Nano again, with guitarists Ian Carr and Mattias Pérez, in the thick of a very international crowd of young musicians with – it being Sweden – plenty of fiddles, but also a wide range of instruments from around the world, and playing music they’d taught one another from their various traditions. They’d all been at Ethno Sweden in Rättvik, and had come to Bingsjö to perform what they’d put together. Not simple, lowest common denominator stuff, but often
tricky and certainly impressive, as was the enthusiasm and happy spirit. Clearly strong musical and personal connections begin at Ethno, and most participants, having been to one, are hooked and go to others, often in a different country.
The Ethno camps come under the wing of the world’s largest youth music NGO, Brussels-based Jeunesse Musicales International, but they’re run indepen- dently from it and have taken on a life of their own, and each year new Ethnos spring up in more and more countries, often organised by alumni of earlier ones. Last December saw the first Ethno Aus- tralia, and this September comes the first Ethno Tanzania. This year there are also Ethnos in Sweden, Croatia, Estonia, Den- mark and Flanders, and in earlier years they were held in Slovenia, France, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Uganda and Scotland. There was one in England too, from 2003 to 2008 but, while English musicians go to other countries for their Ethno fix, England’s own was dis- continued and is waiting for someone to take up the reins here.
The word ‘camp’ probably implies tents but, while there’s an outdoor feel to them, the accommodation is usually more substantial than that, in buildings suitable for communal sleeping, eating and endless playing of music.
I wanted to get an impression of what goes on, so Skyped Nano Stern at his home in Chile. Having heard about the Slovenian Ethno, known as Ethno Hist(e)ria, from some people who picked him up while hitching in Belgium, Nano went in search of it and got sucked in, and began collabo- rating with another of Ethno’s most ener- getic figures, Slovenian puppeteer and accordeonist Matija Solce, becoming one of the most visible leader/mentors at sev- eral including Ethno Australia. He’s taking this year out to concentrate on his own music and bands, and make room for oth- ers to lead, but is currently planning the first Ethno Chile for 2013.
I asked him what happens when one arrives at an Ethno. “Music. Immediately. I’ll never forget when I got there. I didn’t really know where it was, in this village in Istria. I’d never been to a Slavic country in my life, I was completely lost, and I just heard music; I literally heard it over the hill, like in a story. And I walked there, and I was received by this bunch of crazy peo- ple with accordeons and fiddles and flutes, playing and playing and playing, and they went “Get your guitar and just play!” On the first evening it’s like electric energy. Everyone is jamming, it’s been a year since many of them met, and lots of new people are shocked. People play, play, play, and that’s the beauty of it.”
Photos courtesy Jeunesse Musicales International
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