Lecturer: art historian Ivan Viđen, co-author of a monograph on the history of FA Linđo
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The opening of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival is today unthinkable without a performance by the Linđo Folklore Ensemble. It is a symbolic and visible sign of something much deeper and more significant: the connection between Linđo and the Festival is not accidental at all, as it is a true strategic partnership. Although this ensemble made its first appearance at the Festival in August 1967 (less than two years after its founding), it was the Festival leadership that initiated the idea of establishing a folklore ensemble in the town under the Srđe River back in 1957. It was not just about the possibility of saving money on visiting folklore ensembles from other cities, but it was already emphasized at that time that the goal of the future ensemble would be to gather young people and give them healthy content for work, learning and performing folk folklore, and Dubrovnik as a tourist center would gain one more attraction. The idea presented at the beginning envisaged that the ensemble would have a semi-professional character and that its members would be exclusively local young people, which later proved to be a good basis for the future organization. However, from 1967 to the present, the Linđo Folklore Ensemble has not only been the main backbone of the folklore part of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival program, but has also developed and grown with it, going through all the social and repertoire changes. These two institutions have been intertwined with their activities for decades and have had a stimulating influence on each other. Let's find out how, let's remember what Linđo gave to the Festival and what they gave to him.
This lecture is one of the events with which the Linđo Folklore Ensemble will celebrate its sixtieth anniversary in 2025. Its holding as part of this year's DLJI program is completely expected and is a symbolic homage to the firmly rooted cooperation between these two Dubrovnik institutions.
In the second part of the evening, they will perform a 45-minute vocal-instrumental program called "Ethnophony"!
The repertoire will include selected vocal-instrumental pieces from Linđo's repertoire. They will perform compositions from all parts of our beautiful country, in which they will present their orchestra, choir, male and mixed klapa, and the audience will have the opportunity to hear almost the entire instrumentation at their disposal. The orchestra will be conducted by maestro Siniša Leopold.
