PORTA 2008
NOVEMBER, 3, 4, 7
11:00 Latvian Music Academy
Workshop of georgian folk music
NOVEMBER, 5
19:00 Ventspils culture centre Kuldigas street 8, Ventspils
The Shin (Georgia)
NOVEMBER, 6
18:00 Concert hall "Sapņu fabrika" Lacplesa street 101, Riga
WOMEX World music Film programme "Talma Sardinia"
19:00 Concert hall "Sapņu fabrika"
Concert:
22:00 Festival club - Bar Kapteina Enriko pulkstnis Antonijas str. 13, Riga
Jam session
NOVEMBER, 7
18:00 Concert hall "Sapņu fabrika" Lacplesa str. 101, Riga
WOMEX World music Film programme “Wijdan, the Mystery of Gnawa Trance Music”
19:00 Concert hall "Sapņu fabrika"
Concert:
GAITEIROS DE LISBOA /Portugal/
22:00 Festival club - Bar Kapteina Enriko pulkstnis Antonijas str. 13, Riga
Jam session
Gaiteiros de Lisboa 
(Portugal)
Carlos Guerreiro - voice, sanfona, panflutes, búzio, percussion
José Manuel David - voice, percussion
Rui Vaz - voice, bagpipe, ocarina, panflutes, percussion
Paulo Marinho - voice, gaita galega
Pedro Casaes - voice, percussion
Pedro Calado - percussion, flutes, Tubarőes
Gaiteiros de Lisboa ("The Pipers from Lisbon") is Portugal's most innovative band in the area of traditional music. This is a folk-traditional-world band of multi-talented musicians who got together around a sonorous project that stands on the constant search for new sounds. This has leaded the group to the creation of original instruments. Basing its work upon the combination of the sound of different wind instruments and vocal polyphonies, the band plays both songs and tunes coming out of Portuguese tradition or from other cultures, as well as their own compositions. Their experimental attitude sets up a bridge between Tradition and Modernity, by blending traditional styles with contemporary sensibilities.
Since its foundation in 1991 by Paulo Marinho, the band has gone through considerable development. It began as a promoter of tradition Galician and Portuguese bagpipe with street performances, parades and historical pageants.
In 1994 the group did a lot of experimenting with combinations of sounds, repertory, harmony and orquestations. This lead to a concert at the "centro Cultural de Belém" in Lisbon with the groups "Ala do Namorados" and the "Danças Ocultas". The "gaiteiros de Lisboa" also "opened" for the rock band the "Sétima Legião" and others.
Evelina Petrova (Russia)
voice, accordeon
The solo concerts of St. Petersburg based Evelina Petrova are true heart warming experiences. This young lady blends Russian folk music, classical and quite avant-garde improvised music in her playing. There’s such a big amount of power, primitive drive and creativity in her concerts that it is hard to believe that all that music comes from one woman and accordion only.
Petrova utilizes in a great manner the possibilities of both her own voice and accordion, and, at the same time breaks the limits of the traditional expression of both. Her voice is her second instrument: she screams, laughs, wails, growls, barks, huffs and puffs. Although she performs in a sitting position, her performance is also kind of a dance.
Evelina's solo concerts are usually based on her 12-piece compositional suite Yearly Circle which reflects the feelings and moods of the twelve months of a year. This suite was released on a CD by Leo Records in 2004.
Evelina Petrova was born in an industrial city close to St. Petersburg but lived most of her childhood with her grand mother in the country side. It was actually just her grand mother who forced Evelina to study music in a local music school where she took up accordion at the age of twelve. Later on she continued her studies in St. Petersburg and graduated from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory in 2002.
From the late 1990s on she has performed a lot with her former teacher from St. Petersburg Theatre and Music Academy, trumpeter Vyacheslav Gayvoronsky. The duo has made two CDs and concerts throughout Europe and for example a 12-concert tour in Japan back in 2001.
During the past few years Petrova has made solo concerts e.g. in France, Belgium, Slovenia and Finland and has performed in many renowned clubs and festivāls
The Shin (Georgia) & Owl's Etnographic Orchestra (Latvia) 
Zaza Miminoshvili - guitars and midi guitars, panduri
Zurab J. Gagnidze - fretless electric and acoustic bass, Guruli vocals
Mamuka Gaganidze - vocals, percussion
The Shin formed in Germany in 1998, where Zaza Miminoshvili and Zurab Gagnidze have been living since 1994. Mamuka Gaganidze joined the group in 2002.
In their Georgian homeland, these musicians belong to the artistic elite of the country and are well known as leading composers and musicians. They have scripted pieces for productions at the Tbilisi State Theatre, numerous film, TV and radio projects in Georgia and around the world, have taken part in several international projects, working together with great composers, directors and artists such as Gia Kancheli, Robert Sturua, Giora Feidman, Chaka Khan, Randy Brecker, Okay Temiz, Fuat Saka and many others. The musicians have lead workshops on Georgian polyphony, polyrhythmic and improvisation-theory. The Shin has participated in various festivals and won several prizes in recognition of their work.
Music of The Shin smoothly combines Georgian folk melodies with jazz, native polyphonic singing with scat, and in general the music of the near Orient with the modern sounds popular in the West today.
Zane Šmite - vocals
Kristīne Kārkle - vocals, violin
Ilze Grunte - guitars
Valts Pūce - vocals, accordion
Ainārs Majors - bass guitar
Mikus Čavarts - percussion
Pūces Etnogrāfiskais orķestris (Owl’s Etnographic Orchestra) all are experienced and in Latvia well known musicians of different musical background – classical, folk, ethno and folk-rock. Composer Valts Pūce is a leader of the group and after PORTA festival’s initiative he invited all these musicians and formed a new ensemble. The summer of 2006 was spent in practice sessions and the album This Life/ The Afterlife was recorded in the studio. It has already become popular and highly acclaimed in Latvia. Moreover it has also won recognition abroad.
The programme was both nominated for Latvijas Mūzikas Ierakstu Gada Balva 2006 award (Recording of the Year Award) and included in the charts of portals TVnet.lv and Delfi.lv as the most intriguing Latvian album.
Célia Mara (Austria)
Célia Mara - voice, guitar
Dieter Stemmer - keyboard, b.voc
Patrick Zambonin - e-bass, bvoc
Harry Tanschek - drums
DJ Philta - electronics, cratch
Siju - visuals
Célia Mara is certainly one of the most impressing latin front-ladies living between Brazil & Central Europe…
Coming from Pedra Azul, a small town in dry Jequitinhonhas valley (MG), she travelled a lot and lives now in Vienna. Commenting the world. Living changes. Making music.
She sings, plays, composes and arranges. She is a band leader and a solo artist, a 21st. century singer - songwriter, a real Brazilian groovelady, a jazzsinger full of emotion, a screaming rockstar, a sensual seduction, an electronic clockwork. Always carrying a message for peace and social justice with her …
Célia Mara’s charismatic voice, her strong compositions, the eclectic, but typically Brazilian mixture and the edgy electro-arrangements made her latest album bastardista storm the European Worldmusic charts.
Célia Mara has been awarded various times for her work - latest was the Brazilian export award, Copa da Cultura by the Ministry of Culture. 2003, it was the intercultural aspect of her work to be granted (herta pammer preis, Austria), 2000 she has been elected best world music artist Austria (concerto Poll). She worked for UNESCO regarding cultural diversity and is always engaged in questions of social justice.
WOMEX film programme
Wijdan, the Mystery of Gnawa Trance Music
Production Company: Possible Pictures (USA)
Associated Production Company: Mandala Productions (France)
Producer, Executive Producer, Author: Bella Le Nestour
Director, Editor: John Allen
Camera: John Allen, Khalil Benkirane
Music by: Brahim El Belkani, Sibiri Samaké
Dar Denise Mason, Marrakech, Paris, 2004, 52'
The film "Wijdan" captures the mysterious power of a Gnawa trance ceremony in Marrakech. Painting an intimate portrait of two musicians, the Gnawa Brahim El Belkani and the Malian shaman Sibiri Samaké, "Wijdan" is a testament to a fast changing Africa. Breaking away from the anthropological genre this documentary conveys the modernity of these masters of the supernatural as they transmit secret knowledge to their children, because “who knows the colour of the chick before it hatches?”
TALAM - A musical odyssey. Sardinia
Production Company: TSI - Televisione svizzera di lingua italiana (Switzerland)
Co-Production Company: Myro Film (Italy)
Producer: Renzo Rota
Director/ author: Roberto Minini Merot, Clement Chammah, Luciano Martinengo
Camera: Angelo Volponi
Recorded: 2006
Duration: 58'
Talam is a journey through the roots of mankind, a tour of man’s both welcoming and hostile abodes. It is an investigation of the colours and primeval sounds of music and an attempt to capture their communicative power.
Talam Sardinia moves on to an Italian island with a peculiar geography and history. Its people are mountain dwellers who live surrounded by the sea. They take pride in their identity as they have survived an endless succession of invasions over the centuries; always conquered, but never subdued. Their music was inspired by the bleating of the sheep and the wind in the bulrush. It may have changed in form, but very little in content, as it still draws on the fundamentals of life.