The Medellin Blues Festival begins on Monday for its third consecutive year, and will run until August 31.
The festival consists of a varied program and will range from academic events to live concerts with both national and local guests.
The Director of the festival, James Monsalve indicated that the event will have an educational feel as it is “important to generate awareness of contact and music, that people connect with the Blues and see that it is more than a genre, as it is a feeling.” Consequently, the event will include films and storytellers educating audiences about the Blues genre.
This is the third edition of the festival, and sees the creation of the Colombian Blues society, the first society of its kind in Latin America. In the coming years the society will look to create broader networks and the festival can thus internationalize.
Monsalve insisted however that the priority of the festival is not profit.
“First of all you have to teach people how to find themselves through Blues, how to understand their being and all they have conceived with their lives.”
Sources
- Medellín sentirá el Blues Festival (El Mundo)
- Medellín Blues Festival (Facebook Page)