In 2020 the musical, gastronomic and cultural and artistic programme Porto Etno – Festival of World Music and Gastronomy is developing under the theme of TOGETHER and brings a new vision of society based on the experiences of Rijeka’s Port of Diversity.
Croatian and Serbian folk ensembles perform together at Porto Etno, and for this occasion, with the specially produced programme Hand in Hand 3.0, the Istrian scale encounters Montenegrin rap, Nigerian afrobeat and Roma Balkan Brass Battle trumpeters. The hand-picked selection of performers of world music at Porto Etno 2020 is led by Rambo Amadeus (CG), Džambo Aguševi Orchestra (MK), the ensemble of Serbian folk games and song KOLO (RS), the ensemble of Croatian folk dance and songs LADO (HR), Tamara Obrovac (HR) and the Porto Etno Orchestra (HR).
The gastronomic part of the programme presents delicacies of national cuisines – granny’s barley stew stands side-by-side with Italian lasagne and Filipino prawns, local gastronomic traditions from the neighbourhoods of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County combine with the customs of modern Mediterranean cooking. Porto Etno 2020 brings unexpected collaborations which develop and intertwine together around the theme of TOGETHER, and so amateur chefs, members of the associations of national minorities, get together with professionals, and secondary school students of the Catering School in Opatija have the opportunity to cook with famous chefs.
Porto Etno was developed within the preparatory programme of Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture and continues a twenty-year tradition of holding the Ethno Review – Days of Ethnic Minorities in Rijeka.
The foundation of the festival is comprised of the music and gastronomy of countries whose minorities live and work in the city of Rijeka and Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.
With a new, modernised look, Porto Etno – Festival of Music and Gastronomy began life in 2017, and to this day, in addition to the community of national minorities, it has also gathered together many settlers in Rijeka, together with musical nomads from throughout the world.