Jacek Gintowt, artistic director of the third Warsaw Cross-Culture Festival (Sept. 8-16), talks to Przemysław Molik.

In The 3rd Warsaw Cross-Culture Festival is now upon us. Can we take that to mean that the festival has become a permanent fixture on Warsaw's cultural calendar?
We sincerely hope so. The city authorities really want "Cross-Culture" to be one of Warsaw's selling points, along with regular festivals like the jazz festival or Warsaw Autumn. The second festival showed that Cross-Culture is slowly becoming a September fixture, and our team is already working on next year's festival.

Talking about previous festivals, what have the organizers learned from them?
The first festival was an experiment to test audience reactions. We got a lot of feedback that we put to good use when preparing the second festival, which was of a much higher standard. We staged nearly 40 artistic events that drew an audience of 11,000. This convinced us to continue with world music.

World music is a specialist category. Does this worry you?
We've obviously had some concerns, but we've managed to find and plug a gap in the city's cultural calendar. Warsaw had never had a major event devoted to folk, or more broadly ethnic, music before. But the second festival showed us that the enthusiasts are out there. We also found that music lovers of all stripes came to the concerts and that some of them went away with a newfound appreciation of this genre of music.

This brings to mind Ryszard Kapu¶ciński's dictum, which serves as the festival's motto, that Warsaw really is a place where different cultures come together.
I am glad you mention that. We're very grateful that Kapu¶ciński let us use this fragment from Travels with Herodotus: "… other worlds and other cultures are mirrors that reflect ourselves and our culture." This, I think, eloquently summarizes the aims which have guided the festival organizers, that is the City of Warsaw and Stołeczna Estrada, from the outset. I should mention that the first festival was held under the rubric of "At the Crossroads of Cultures."

That was a little misleading as Warsaw has always been a junction where trade routes meet but never a multicultural city in the same way that ŁódĽ or Cracow are. That's why we changed the name to Cross-Culture. We feel that this explains why thousands of people, Varsovians and tourists alike, come to the festival to meet artists from all over the world.

The festival is all about music… What concerts have you planned for this year?
The opening concert will be held in the Warsaw Philharmonic as it was last year. New Zealand soprano Kiri Te Kanawa was last year's drawing card; this year we invited the Téka Ensemble, one of Hungary's most popular folk groups. Téka plays authentic folk music and has been appointed by the Hungarian government to represent the national culture. This will be their first performance with a symphony orchestra, which should make for an interesting evening. We are delighted to have classical music mixed in with the sounds of dulcimers, pan pipes and bagpipes. We hope that our other concerts, including those by Norwegian Sami (Lappish) singer Mari Boine, Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu and flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo, will prove equally popular.

The program also includes a concert by MoZULUart, a group that combines the music of Mozart with Zulu songs. Now that's cross-culture!
That is definitely a cultural curiosity, a collaboration between an Austrian pianist and a vocal group from Zimbabwe, but it's not the only one. A new jazz combo, The Moscow Art Trio, has found common cultural ground with the Huun-Huur-Tu throat singers from Tuva [a Russian republic next to Mongolia], and the choir The Bulgarian Voices. You can see them performing together at the festival's grand finale. And nothing so beautifully encapsulates the festival's vision as Israeli ensemble Toy Vivo Trio sharing a stage with Iranian musicians Hossein Hamidi and Bahram Sarang. We are planning to release a promotional CD featuring music from all the artists performing at the festival before it opens.

Music workshops were very popular last year. Are you expecting the same this year?
All our workshops were booked out instantly this year, which was way beyond expectations. I should point out that a lot of renowned masters have devotees from all over the world who follow them everywhere. These workshops are a rare opportunity for master and student to get together, which explains their popularity. We expect 50 people at each workshop at the Centrum Łowicka, that is 400 places in all. If Warsaw had more suitable venues, then we could accommodate even more.

What about film? French director Tony Gatlif, who specializes in gypsy culture, was a special guest last year...
We choose directors who have won awards at Cannes. That was the case with Gatlif last year and will be the case again this year when we screen films by Turkish director Fatih Akin. While Akin won't be making an appearance, we're hoping to invite one of his leading actors.

A CD fair is an innovation at this year's festival. How will that be organized?
We noticed that our artists' CDs were very popular last year. We decided to invite record companies experienced in ethnic music this year so as to capitalize on that. German label Jaro Mediem, which records Polish group Kapela ze Wsi Warszawa, is one such company.
Details: www.festival.warszawa.pl