Coordinator: Ustanova Imago Sloveniae (SI)
Partners: Associazione Culturale Musicastrada (IT), Hagyományok Háza (HU), Trefpunt Festival vzw (BE)

Project amount: 356.344 EUR
EU support: 200.000 EUR (56,13 %)
Project duration: 1. 6. 2018–31. 10. 2019

With the Voices of Minorities project, the partners would like to point out the often underestimated, even overlooked, but none the less essential influence that ethnic minorities are constantly exercising upon society and (especially musical) culture in Europe. The project specifically refers to the current refugee crisis, the general public’s attitude towards it and the process of integration of refugees into a new living environment. On the basis of intercultural dialogue, through education and awareness-raising as well as by connecting representatives of different ethnic minorities and the general public, project partners want to stimulate reflection on this issues and on possible positive effects on the integration of ethnic minorities into society, thereby contributing to the openness of society for the differences in the long run.

The main idea of the project is the exchange of musicians and groups whose music reflects the effects of ethnic minorities among the four participating partners: Slovenian Imago Sloveniae as a leading partner will co-operate with the organization of the »Nights in old Ljubljana Town« festival in 2018 and 2019, Belgian Trefpunt will present its part of the project at concerts of the Trefpunt Festival in Ghent in 2019, the Italian Musicastrada at the eponymous festival in the north-western area of Tuscany at the end of July and the beginning of August 2019,  and Hungarian Hagyományok Háza‘s part will be performed at the Budapest Folk Fest in May 2019.

Each of the partners offered several bands representing the music of ethnic minorities in their countries in exchange. The result is a collection of 19 names of musically diverse performers representing minorities from many different areas of Europe and other continents, giving festival program leaders the freedom to design musical content. All programs will reflect the music of minorities, and at the same time, due to the different choices of individual festivals, they will also be very diverse.

An important aspect is the revival of cultural heritage, as the programs of all participating festivals will be held in historic old town centres.

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