According to Slovakia's exit strategy from the coronavirus lockdown, greenlighted by the Central Crisis Management Team on Tuesday, the opening of cultural institutions and events will come in its final stages. Last week, the organizers of Pohoda, the largest summer multi-genre festival in Slovakia, announced the 2020 event would be moved "in the air" and the venue would be held in 2021.
On Friday, 24th April, the only Slovak showcase festival Sharpe was to open in Bratislava hosting the star KEXP's DJ Kevin Cole as the chief conference speaker. Sharpe's Zuzana Mrazikova:
"Unfortunately, the current state of things gave us no other option, than to cancel Sharpe festival, which was originally scheduled for this weekend. We have decided to postpone this event to the first weekend of September this year."
Nonetheless, on Saturday, 25th April, it will be possible to join the online version of the conference which will feature a discussion in English. This will feature Lucy Atkinson, from Earth Agency Limited, and the interview will be lead by Gordon Masson, British music publicist from IQ Magazine.
On Sunday, 21st April, the first virtual festival of Slovak independent music Plody doby started. Ondrej Geče, an initiator of the event:
"The culture institutions as well as for example the Slovak institute in France, were kind enough to provide us support to create these streamed concerts in a high quality. So far, we have 15 to 17 concerts on the program already, that can be broadcasted anywhere in the world."
Furthermore, wherever you find yourself around the world these days, one can listen to the Slovak Philharmonic, which feeds its website with Concerts without an audience every Tuesday. These can be accessed in the online music video archives of this state-run institution. So far, there is still hope that the Bratislava music festival, the longest run classical music events in the country, will be held in September similarly to the only two years old Sharpe event.
