With interactive events and unique stage productions, PONT Festival 2020 introduces the special traditions of Georgia and Armenia. Georgian music will be introduced by the Quintet Urmuli, who have been together since 1993. Founder and leader Nugzar Kawtaradze based the quintet’s style on the immensely rich musical tradition of his native land – from medieval polyphonic singing to instrumental folk music –, adding of course a great deal of improvisation. The members of the group come from all over the country and perform no less than thirty different instruments.
The Shoghaken Folk Ensemble, which was founded in Yerevan in 1995, gives a concert. The band only plays what are the authentic instruments of Armenian folk music, such as the duduk, the dhol, the qanun, the kamancheh and the shvi. The two singers, Hasmik Harutyunyan and Aleksan Harutyunyan are well-known not only in Armenia, but in the former Soviet Union and Europe as well, thanks to their special mode of performing Armenian folk music and ashoughagan, a form of old epic and heroic poetry.

This event of the Budapest Spring Festival is presented by Müpa Budapest as a joint program with Hangvető.