World of Kafana
One of the most important—and perhaps most misunderstood—aspects of urban culture in the Balkans is the kafana. It is not simply a pub or a restaurant, but a meeting place, a refuge, and the setting for confessions and momentous decisions, where music is not merely background noise but the event itself. The songs born in kafanas speak the language of everyday life: of love and loss, homesickness, friendship, many spoken words, and even more unspoken ones.
Schedule
"Idemo u kafanu!" or where and how the Balkan spirit celebrates. What are the places where live music still thrives today in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, where you can cut through the cigarette smoke, the table groans under the weight of food, the rakija fires people up, and the accordionist, seeing into the guests’ souls, starts playing their favorite song even before the dinars have found their way into the instrument. What is a kafana, how did this indispensable institution in the Balkan countries come into being, what did it mean a hundred years ago and what does it mean today, how did it evolve from Turkish coffeehouses into a refuge from social conventions and a place where overflowing emotions found solace in music, song, and drink, how did it become embedded in everyday life, which social strata came together there, how did it shape 20th-century Balkan music, and what is it that still serves as a bond among the people living there today, after the storms of history? How does it fit into the fabric of Balkan music, what patterns did it weave into it, and how does the world of kafanas keep it alive to this day.
House of Music Hungary
A music education centre and concert venue in the heart of the City Park, behind the airy futuristic glass facade of Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto.