Slovenian Prime Minister and current European Council President Janez Janša today attended the 39th Slovenian Choir Festival, which each year brings together amateur choirs from Slovenia and those of Slovenian national minorities abroad. This year’s event was also host to participants from several EU countries.

 

(Photo: Srdjan Živulovič/Bobo)

 

On this occasion, PM Janez Janša recalled the origins of the gatherings which have drawn both singers and fans of choral singing. “The original founders of this festival probably never imagined that today, here in Šentvid pri Stični, Slovenian song would be sung by the community of a greater Slovenian homeland, made up of Slovenes who live here in Slovenia and those who live around the world, from Gorenjska to Argentina. Nor could they have imagined that Slovenian songs would be sung here by friends from the European Union – from Estonia to Macedonia, and from Belgium to Portugal.” The Prime Minister supposed that the festival founders could certainly not have imagined that their initial steps – the seeds of the event – would take root, flourish and bear such opulent fruit.

 

PM Janez Janša also recalled the 500th anniversary of the birth of Primož Trubar, which is also being celebrated in Slovenia this year, and pointed out that it was thanks to this great man that the first Slovenian song appeared in print. Trubar also receives the credit for the motto of the Šentvid Choir Festival – ‘naj ljudje pojo’ (‘Let the people sing’). Trubar had thus, said the Prime Minister, spoken of the universal values embodied by song and, in particular, choral singing. “In the course of the last five centuries, Slovenian song has not only progressed and developed to reach its present level of quality but it has also, along with the Slovenian language, shaped our national character and helped establish a Slovenian homeland,” declared PM Janez Janša. He also emphasised that Slovenian song merited an elevated position not only in the Slovenian arts arena but also as a component of Slovenian statehood.

 

(Photo: Srdjan Živulovič/Bobo)

 

The Prime Minister shared a personal experience with the assembled singers and other fans of choral singing, recalling that, twenty years previously, after attending the human rights demonstration on Kongresni trg in Ljubljana, a choir had sung the traditional Slovenian song ‘Lipa zelenela je’ (The linden tree was turning green) outside the prison cells on Metelkova Street in Ljubljana. “The song reached us through the closed windows and the bars. And that was the most beautiful gift we ever received, twenty years ago, in those two months in prison.”