(Re)creating the (folk music) tradition: The national competition of brass orchestras at the Dragacevo Trumpet Festival

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of the treatment of traditional music at the Dragačevo Trumpet Festival, one of the most important folk music festivals in Serbia. In over half a century of its existence, the Festival has developed from a local event into an international spectacle with a programme scheme which reflects the growing tendency towards multiculturalism, also obvious at the national contest, which refers conceptually to the national folk music tradition. The effects of 'festivalization' are analyzed on the example of the 50th contest (2010), as a paradigm of the modern treatment of the folk music tradition at the Festival. The complexity of the web of the Festival's protagonists (musicians, organizers, the members of the jury, the audience), requires a consideration of the issue through different domains which represent their participation in the (re)creation of tradition.