Why The Mountains Are Black 2025: The Musical Cultures of the Southern Balkans

This third year of "Why the Mountains Are Black: The Musical Cultures of the Southern Balkans" has as its theme the unexpected influences within the folk music economies of Greece and the southern Balkans. Because time affects space, the place where we are is not the place where we were. Often, it is outside of our collective memories to conceive of the diversity of languages, communities, and religions that once shared a common space within this region. And to share space is also to create cultures, especially musical cultures. The traditions, both old and new, in this program all borrow from one another, forming shocking confluences. Our ears have to be as open as our minds. And as sonic archeologists, we must expect the unexpected about our past.

Onassis Stegi returns to the town of Konitsa, together with Grammy Award-winning music producer Christopher King, for further explorations of their internationally acclaimed program. "Why the Mountains Are Black" is a three-day music festival fusing the traditional sounds of the Balkans with experimental improvisations and ethnographic cinema. This third annual festival will invite musicians from the Greek Pontic tradition, central Bulgaria, the Greek islands, the Carpathians, Asia Minor, the Klezmer tradition, and beyond. There will be screenings of two films after the first two nights of performances.