Tamburitza Fest
The international tamburitza festival Tamburitza Fest is a five-day event held in Petrovaradin Fortress and in Novi Sad, featuring a unique concept and the cultural mission of promoting tamburitza music and the tamburitza as an instrument and cherishing tradition, cooperation and friendship of artists at an international level. Every year the festival gathers local and foreign bands who compete for the title of the best one in the competitive part of the programme, while in the non-competitive part of the programme showbiz celebrities present their hits also accompanied by tamburitza players. The opening festival days are held in downtown Novi Sad: in the first two days, there is a procession of tamburitza players moving along Zmaj Jovina Street, Dunavska Street, Modena Street and the Catholic church of Katolička Porta, followed by performances in outdoor seating areas of bars and restaurants in these streets. The third day is organised at the Trg Slobode square, where cultural artistic societies, folk ensembles and tamburitza orchestras give their performances. This is preceded by a special procession of carriages along the city streets. A competition open to tamburitza orchestras playing both traditional and new, original songs takes place in Petrovaradin Fortress on the fourth and the fifth day. This is also where well-known performers, special guests of the Tamburitza Fest, perform as part of the non-competitive part of the programme.
The Tamburitza Fest was created in 2008, when tamburitza players from across the globe first gathered in Deronje, a picturesque and the most tamburitza-oriented village in the world, situated in the north of Bačka.
Deronje was the festival venue for four years. In 2012, the festival “moved” to Petrovaradin Fortress for organisational reasons. In 2013, an international competition took place in Petrovaradin and a tamburitza gathering of local bands was held in Deronje.
Over 1800 participants have performed at our festival in the last eight years and we believe that our hospitality, the way in which we welcomed and saw them off, has made us 1800 new friends. During that time, several hundred thousand visitors enjoyed the virtuosity of the masters of the string and the pick. Over 50 showbiz celebrities, including Olivera Katarina, Rade Šerbedžija, Zvonko Bogdan, Haris Džinović, Miroslav Ilić, Šaban Šaulić, Jelena Rozga, Merima Njegomir, Željko Joksimović, Dženan Lončarević, Ana Bekuta, Luis, Marinko i Nikola Rokvić, Aca Lukas, Halid Bešlić, Predrag Cune Gojković, Ognjen Radivojević, Danka Ubiparip, Đorđe Čavić, ‘O đila’, ‘Legende’, ‘Apsolutno romantično’, Željko Bebek, Svetlana Ceca Ražnatović, Željko Samardžić, etc., have performed at the festival over a period of 6 years.
The Tamburitza Fest was also the birth place of the World Tamburitza Association, which gathers all tamburitza players across the globe and is headquartered in Novi Sad.