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30, 31 December 2009 – Balkan pre-New Year’s Eve party – Thousands bade farewell to the old year on the new main square
The world-renowned director and musician Emir Kusturica inaugurated the revived main square of Pécs with the Non-Smoking Orchestra with a concert on 30 December 2009.
Besides Woody Allen, Kusturica is the director who is also kept count of as a musician. He and his band are capable of evoking such energies that make it questionable whether it is better if he makes movies or music.
Probably the whole world knows the soundtrack of the movie Black Cat White Cat that became a cult movie in Hungary as well. For the citizens of Pécs one of the most extraordinary scenes in the movie is when the characters mention the market place of the city. As a director Kusturica does not only create funny scenes out of the incredible poverty present in many places of the Balkans but he makes us love it too.
The soundtrack played by the No Smoking Orchestra contributed a great deal to the success of the movie. The band had toured the world even before their breakthrough, but they have been playing gigs non-stop in full houses in Israel, Argentina, Paris, Warsaw, Budapest and all around the world since Black Cat White Cat. The band successfully unites the ethno, punk rock and folk styles with basically everything else they have appetite for. The clarinet was screaming and the accordion crying - with all the other wind instruments answering. And the crowd certainly did go wild also. During these gigs there are no taboos.
This cheerful concert in Pécs with thousands in the audience was a perfect and worthy opening of the year 2010 that waits for everyone with a cavalcade of excellent programmes in Pécs.
Many thousands bade farewell to the old year
Several thousand people gathered on the new Széchenyi Square in Pécs on 31 December 2009.
The Ska-Pécs band set the mood from 9.30 p.m. followed by the American New York Ska Jazz Ensemble for the greatest joy of the audience.
At midnight Dr. Zsolt Páva Mayor of the City of Pécs gave a ceremonial toast. The politician talked about the Pécs2010 European Capital of Culture Programme and the challenges of the year. He closed his speech by cheering „Go Pécs!”