"Ever danced to a DJ × bandura set? You're about to": Berlin gets its first bandura festival

Berlin is holding its first bandura festival. Berlin Bandur Fest runs for three days, from 11 to 13 September, gathering bandura players and researchers from around the world.

This was announced by the Embassy of Ukraine in Germany.

The programme has been assembled so the instrument sounds across the widest possible range: from authentic Ukrainian repertoire to experimental jam sessions between bandura players, DJs and world-music artists from other countries. The organisers list separately a DJ set that takes the bandura straight onto the dancefloor.

A festival the war stopped in Lviv

The Berlin programme is not a new project but a continuation. Bandura player Anastasiya Voytyuk founded a festival of contemporary bandura music in Lviv in 2017 under the name Lviv Bandur Fest; it ran until the start of the full-scale war in 2022 and shared the fate of most Ukrainian festivals — it either disappeared or was put on hold.

The idea of moving the festival to Berlin came from Khrystyna Petrynka, a bandura player from Ukraine now studying in Germany and writing her thesis on the development of the modern bandura. She had taken part in the Lviv festival herself.

"But even back then, it was clear to me that the bandura is so much more — it's an instrument on which you can play all genres of music, create your own work and reinterpret tradition," Voytyuk wrote in her essay for the magazine Folker.

She also explains why the festival is needed now. The bandura survived nearly a century of Soviet occupation and changed noticeably as a result — so, in Voytyuk's words, when people talk about the bandura they are really talking about a family of instruments. And since 2022 a great many bandura players have left Ukraine.

"Whether temporarily or permanently, only time will tell, but they are all cultural ambassadors for Ukraine and help to promote our culture," the festival's founder said.

Three days, three venues

There are three venues: Unity Hub Berlin, Hotel Continental — Art Space in Exile and Roter Löwe. The festival languages are Ukrainian and English, and tickets are free. The organisers are the Berlin association Chervona Kalyna Berlin e.V. and the Ukrainian Neprotoptana Stezhyna.

The festival returns to Ukraine the same month: the Lviv edition is set for 24–30 September, with separate events in the frontline cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.

As reported earlier by ONE//FM, the bandura already met electronics this spring in a joint track by Maryna Krut and ONUKA.