Children’s Folk Music Festival

The Children’s Folk Music Festival is a national competitive festival of children’s ensembles and soloists, which features interpreters of musical folklore such as children’s folk music bodies, singers groups, soloist singers and instrumentalists. The festival’s mission is to encourage and develop a love of folklore in children and to spur their interest in pursuing activity in this direction, facilitating the presentation of the results of this work to the public and confronting them with results of others. Equally the festival seeks to identify new musicians and singing talents.

The Festival is held every two years. The National Centre of Culture announces the competition, and the organiser on behalf of Banska Bystrica Self-governing Region is the Gemer-Malohont Cultural Centre (GMOS), Rimavská Sobota. The event is open to groups or soloists (regardless of membership in any ensemble or group) active in the territory of the Slovak Republic and drawing on folkloric music material from Slovakia. The age limit is 15 years, except for the player of contrabass in folk music, who may be 18 years. Soloists and collectives compete in four categories: (i) folk music, (ii) singers´ groups (the number of members in both categories is 3-12), (iii) solo or duo singers accompanied if necessary by one instrumentalist or by a folk music band, and (iv) soloist instrumentalists. The 2008 festival took place on 13-14 June 2008 in Rimavská Sobota. Presentations at all levels are judged by expert juries. Best performances in the national round are awarded the title Laureate of the Children’s Folk Music Festival.