The Budapest Ritmo, Hungary's latest and greatest world music festival, was inspired by the success of the 2015 WOMEX, which was held in Budapest. Presented by Hangvető and CAFe Budapest, Budapest Ritmo is the first world music festival in Hungary and Eastern Europe to serve as a meeting point for the region and the world, where the interaction of different cultures can become a source of renewable energy. As a consequence, the theme of the first Budapest Ritmo is encounter, chance meetings that often seem improbable and surprising: the joint performance of Armenian and Turkish, French and Japanese, Israeli and Iranian, Roma and Sami performers. New energies are certain to come into being, both on the stage and in the auditorium, with several of recent years' greatest stars of world music playing alongside the Hungarian and East European artists. The festival also offers a taste of the programme of WOMEX, the world music expo held this year in Spain: six of the bands to be featured there will captivate audiences and cause them to dance in Budapest a mere week before the event.

On 13 October, the opening concert of Budapest Ritmo looks at the afterlife of Béla Bartók's collection of Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian and Slovak folk songs. The gala concert will be an homage to Béla Bartók the collector and student of folk music, who is a point of reference for world music. Bartók's work is a fantastic example of the encounter between Eastern Europe and the world, as the collecting composer worked in almost all the countries of the region, as well as in Turkey and North Africa (Algeria).

Presented by: CAFe Budapest, Hangvető