Viljandi Folk Music Festival

Viljandi Folk Music Festival has been organized since 1993. The purpose of the festival is to advocate and teach traditional music amongst Estonians of all ages.

Viljandi Folk Music Festival is well known for its warm and friendly atmosphere.

The organizers have done huges amounts of work during the past nine years - they have created vital justification for traditional music in the urbanized and modernized society, altering many traditional songs, tunes and dances alive again. The organizers are sure that this should be continued. There is a team (~20 persons) which is working for the festival whole year and approximately 150 voluntary workers during the festival. The festival was founded by students of the Viljandi Culture College as a non-profit festival with a mission to popularise traditional music.



Construction of the festival:

1. The program of the concerts. In last years there have been over 70 concerts during the festival (for example there were 57 different ensembles and 85 concerts in the festival of 2004). The performers are selected by the

principle that most of them come from Estonia and about 15 performers from

all over the world. The bands brought here from foreign countries are only the best and most characteristic of the area they come from. This is due to

our goal of introducing the foregin cultures to our listeners and only the best are good enough. Geography is very wide - from Mordovia, Georgia and

East-Russia to South-America. Scandinavia and British islands are dominating.



2. Work-shops. It is possible to learn traditional singing, dancing and

instrumental music. The leaders are the best professionals from Estonia and also from abroad. Participation is very numerous. All the bands performing at the festival are supposed to hold 1 or 2 workshops. The idea is that the audience of the festival has a chance to learn authentic folk music from the professionals. Foreign artists introduce the different ways they play their instruments and share their songs and lyrics with fellow musicians from Estonia. It is not rare that after the workshops one can find the bands outside on the hills of Viljandi jamming with their newly made friends.



3. The Fair of Musical Instruments. This is the only known and assuredly the biggest Estonian fair of musical instruments. The builders of pipe, fiddle, accordion and kannel (Estonian cither) come to fair to sell and fix instruments.