Many of us know the “Eurovision” but a few know that it’s not only one musical competition in Europe that can be interesting with ethnic point of view. The music festivals organized in many European countries. One of them is «Liet International» that can be called “Indigenous Eurovision” in Europe. The mission of «Liet International» is to promote song on minorities and indigenous languages with using the modern styles of music.
International festival Liet International has completed the line-up for its eight edition in the Italian city of Udine. In Friûl, in the northeast of Italy, Liet International will last four days from Thursday the 17th until Sunday the 20th of November. The activities start on the 17th of November in the Kulturni Dom in the border town of Gorizia, where singer songwriter Jana Eijer from Friesland and the bands Rollfa (Sámi) and Macanta (Scotland) will play at the first Waiting for Liet evening. In Italy Liet International enjoys the support of the provinces of Udine, Gorizia en Pordenone. Every province will have a concert with some of the participants of Liet International. The main event of course remains Liet International itself on Saturday the 19th of November in Teatro Giovanni da Udine.
The final stage of the festival will participate by the winners of regional contests. This year Liet Interntional will feature twelve finalists, one more than
last year. Five of them were chosen in direct voting of festival jury. That year jury received more than 40 applications on 20 languages and selected only 5 bands. One of the finalists is Vepsian group Noid from Karelia.
Noid it’s a musical band from Petrozavodsk (Karelia) composing, arranging and performing songs in Veps language. "Noid" is an ancient word and can be translated from Vepsian as "wizard". People believed that a Noid had magical ability to help or harm them. As a rule, every Vepsian village had its own Noid. Noid music includes both traditional songs arranged in a modern style and authors' songs. In every song the band uses elements of traditional Vepsian musical culture.
The selection jury consisted this year of musicians and music specialists from Asturias, Friuli, the Russian Federation and Friesland, chaired by the Frisian saxophonist Anne Zwaga.
According to the jury, the level and musical diversity of competitions that year are very high. The first time jury selected two bands from Russian Federation. The second one is the «Silent Woo Goore» from Udmurtia.
