Around 200 musicians from three continents are expected to perform in Kosovo for the nine-day DAM International Music Festival, which celebrates music through concerts, workshops and lectures.

Founded in 2006, DAM is an experimental music festival that showcases contemporary classical music.

For DAM’s 12th anniversary, the festival’s poster depicts 12 pink rubber ducks accompanied by the playful tagline, “I am a musical instrument?”

This year’s activities will take place in three different locations in the capital city. The variety of venues offers possibilities for the diverse tastes of the festival’s audience, explained festival art director Dardan Selimaj.

“This time we’ve tried to have a program which will reach different styles and music eras, although the main focus remains on contemporary music,” said Selimaj.

“We are concentrated in three areas throughout Prishtina: the former printing house Rilindja, the Boxing Club, and the Palace of Youth and Sports. I believe we’re going to put together an attractive program so the public can choose,” he added.

The festival will open on Friday, March 31st with the Balkan premiere of the opera “The Dark” by Albena Petrovic Vratchanska.

The well-known Indonesian violinist Iskandar Widjaja and the Albanian clarinet player Taulant Haxhikadrija will also be amongst the special guests performing during this edition.

This year, Selimaj explained, the organizers decided to experiment with new ways to organize the concerts.

“The festival this year is searching for a new experience by organizing concerts in untraditional halls to spread another interrelation between space and sound. The fact that 90 per cent of the program is outside the traditional halls is not because we are lacking halls, but an intentional choice for this year’s edition, which is built on the ‘new concert experience’ theme,” he explained, adding that the festival’s theme this year was an attempt to break free from traditional spaces and venues.

In addition to the concerts, the festival will also include lectures on music theory, such as a talk on impressionism and modernity by the French composer Romain Zante, to be held Monday at noon.

An event to honor the 100th Birth Anniversary of Dorothy Taubman, the American founder of the Taubman Institute of Piano, will be held on Thursday.