Burna Boy, Gilberto Gil and other international artists to take centre stage at Colours of Ostrava
Colours of Ostrava is set to take place in the Moravian city on Wednesday through to Saturday, bringing together a wide variety of musical performances and other entertainment. We spoke to Jiří Sedlák, coordinator of the festival, about what to expect in this year’s edition.
“It’s the 20th edition of the festival this year, so we are celebrating the anniversary this year with the biggest program in the festival’s history. We have the main headliners like Onerepublic, Macklemore, Ellie Goulding, Burna Boy, Niall Horan and many others.
“We have nine music stages but also an extensive non-musical program. We have an international forum called the Meltingpot, and altogether we have 22 stages including discussions with international guests, workshops, and movies. We are based in the industrial area of Ostrava, and we use every area of the space.”
You mentioned it’s the 20th edition of the festival this year, how have you seen the festival change over the past two decades?
“I think there are several changes. For example, around the 11th edition we moved from the city centre to the industrial area, which is much more beautiful and larger, so we could grow and make more indoor and outdoor stages, which has allowed us to make the program bigger.
“Of course we are trying to grow the music and make the line-up contemporary and bring contemporary names. We have many genres, like jazz, rock, pop, and electronica. But throughout the years we got more diverse in genres, we now have more hip hop and rap.”
Burna Boy is a great example of that diversity in your line-up, he’s from Nigeria and has gotten so popular on an international level over the past couple of years – are you looking forward to his set?
“Yes, I saw him perform at Roskilde festival in Denmark – it was great, he had so many musicians and dancers with him on stage, he is really the biggest star of Nigerian music.
“He recently performed at a Football championship in Istanbul, and he was also recently the first African artist to sell out the former Olympic stadium in London, so he really attracts a big crowd and is a great ambassador for African music.”
What else are you looking forward to at this year’s edition of the festival?
“There are so many artists who I am excited to see. For example we have Gilberto Gil, a legendary Brazilian musician and he is coming with a 12 piece band, consisting of a member of his family and he’s on a farewell tour. So it’s maybe the last chance to see Gilberto Gil in the Czech Republic, and he is coming for the first time.
“I’m also looking forward to the closing party with Purple Disco Machine, who is a great German producer. We have many new things like a stage that will be offering workshops and DJs.
“We also have the Clockworks, which is a theatre company that will perform as a nice additional feature. We also have new art installations and so on.”
When it comes to the percentage of people who are coming to the festival, are they mainly Czechs coming from different parts of the country, or are you attracting people from throughout Europe?
“We attract people from all around the Czech Republic, that’s our main source. But also there are many visitors coming from Slovakia, the UK, the US, and Germany, all around the world. But really the majority is from the Czech Republic – from Prague, to Brno, and Olomouc.”
