BrightMed explores chaos for 2019 world music festival

The programme for the BrightMed Gibraltar World Music Festival was announced yesterday by organisers, with this year’s concert to feature ‘Goran Bregovic and his Funeral and Wedding Orchestra’.

Gibraltar Productions is organising the eighth edition of the Gibraltar World Music Festival that will also include a Street Party in Irish Town, an international seminar, musical workshops, a film festival, an exhibition and the BrightMed talks.

The festival is set to take place this June with the theme being ‘Out of Chaos’.

Festival organisers will be looking at “unexpected and chaotic behaviour” of recent years such as Brexit, terrorist attacks, the rise of right-wing political parties and the escalation of immigration concerns.

The Gibraltar World Music Festival concert will be held on June 13 and is headlined by Balkan musician Goran Bregovic along with 20 other performers from countries such as Serbia, Bosnia and Bulgaria.

Diwan Saz will kick off the show that is set to take place at St Michael’s Cave. Diwan Saz is a world music group with musicians from Israel, Palestine, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

At a press conference yesterday Yan Delgado alongside Cecilia Gyarmati, Michele Miliacca, Zuze Marecka, Magdalena Janiszewska, Justyna Zelazo, Sophie Dufnaisse and Veena Purswani told reporters what to expect from this year’s event.

“With ‘Out of Choas’ we aim to tell ourselves and everyone else there are ways to manage our chaotic lives and we want to demonstrate this,” said Mr Delgado.

The majority of the festival will take place between June 11 and 13, with a digital exhibition expected to take place in mid-May.

Mr Miliacca will be organising the Irish Town Street Party on June 12 at 7pm that will fit into the theme of chaos.

The event will stretch the length of Irish Town from the back of ICC to John Mackintosh Square.

He has planned for circus acts with balloons and on stilts, aerial performances, acrobats, fire performances, school choirs and even body painting.

“We want to make the most amount of chaos possible so that people can leave with good memories,” said Mr Miliacca.

A stage will be set up at John Mackintosh Square where local artists have been invited to perform and Diwan Saz will also perform at the street party.

Ms Gyarmarti added that after the street party the Gibraltar World Music Festival will move to a more serious tone with the BrightMed seminars.

The speakers called the Sages of the Med will explore the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) concept.

Pic Johnny Bugeja