KATHAMANDU: Celebrating 100 years of Nepali music recording and 25 years of Music Nepal, the Nepal Music Centre in association with the Norwegian Embassy has organised a four-day International Folk Music Festival 2008. The festival that began on November 5 will see programmes performed at various venues around town.

The first day of the festival on November 5 took place at two different venues of the Capital — Nashal Chowk Basantapur and at the Gokarna Forest Resort.

The opening ceremony at Basantapur was graced by Deputy Prime Minister Bam Dev Gautam as chief guest and diplomats from different countries. The event started with the Manjushree dance followed by Mangal Dhun in which all the performing artistes gathered and circled the chowk.

After Minister Gautam, Norwegian Ambassador Thor Gislesen, and cultural expert Satya Mohan Joshi addressed the crowd. The event progressed with performances by all the participating artistes from different nations.

The cultural programme began with very interesting traditional dance Hudkeli performed in Far West region of Nepal by its locals on the occasion of Dashain and Tihar. A group of men dressed in flowing skirts carrying different instruments danced and sang songs. Next was a Tharu dance Sakhiya paiya all the way from Dang. This type of dance is performed during the Maghi festival where young girls and guys gather and flirt while dancing. After two Nepali folk performances the next one was by Norwegian musician Svein Westad who filled the surrounding with beautiful sounds of murchunga. The loudest applause went to the Rajasthani folk artistes who played peppy music and the lead vocalist showed an unbelievable

vocal range impressing the audience. This particular Rajasthani folk song is performed during the wedding day at the groom’s house and it’s called Amba bari lagani.

Apart from these artistes other international artistes like Ismael Pops Mohamed and Benedicte Mauseth and African group Matadani too performed their ethnic music and dances.