PRESS RELEASE
Apenrade/Aabenraa – Ljouwert/Leeuwarden, 06 April 2021
LIET International 2022 takes place in Tønder/Tondern (DK)
Celebrating European diversity in the Danish-German border region
Unfortunately, the European Song Contest LIET International was cancelled twice in 2020 and 2021, but we are delighted to announce a new date: Friday, 13 May 2022.
LIET International 2022 will take place in a capital of folk music. The venue for this edition of the European Song Contest for regional & minority languages will be the lovely Schweizerhalle – Tønder Kulturhus in the beautiful city of Tønder/Tondern in the southwestern corner of Denmark. The city is home of the annual Tønder Festival. The festival is one of the most prominent festivals for traditional and modern folk music in Europe. www.tonderkulturhus.dk &www.romo-tonder.dk
The music and the bands. A maximum of 13 bands can participate in LIET International 2022. We will start the application process in the end of May. A selection jury will make the final decision on the final 13 bands in October. The presentation of the lineup will take place in November.
Let’s celebrate diversity by combining the uniqueness of the German-Danish border region with European music and language diversity. The German-Danish border region’s landscape is appealing and diversified. There’s hilly landscape by the Baltic Sea, idyllic inland and a North Sea coast with the Wadden Sea and dykes. The borderland is historically formed by German and Danish influences as well as shifting structure of power. Wartimes are replaced today by peaceful cooperation and mutual support, in which the German minority on the Danish side as well as the Frisian and the Danish people of Southern Schleswig on the German side contributes to the cultural diversity of the region. This high concentration of minorities leads automatically to a huge variety in languages. Besides German and Danish, the regional and minority languages Frisian, Low German and Synnejysk are ghosts in this region.
The European Song Contest for regional & minority languages LIET International is a Frisian initiative and was organised for the first time in the capital of Friesland (NL), Ljouwert/Leeuwarden in 2002. Since 2006, the festival travels around Europe and since 2008, under the patronage of the Council of Europe. LIET International grew to one of the biggest events for promotion of regional and minority languages. Every year the song contest attracts a lot of media attention (from BBC to Al Jazeera). In 2018, the latest edition of Liet International took place in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden in the north of the Netherlands.
The host. North of the Danish-German border in the region North of Schleswig live approx. 15,000 people who belong to the German minority. The German minority maintains its own schools and a wide spectrum of social and cultural institutions and serves as a vital bridge between the German and Danish cultures. The host of LIET International is the umbrella organization of the German minority, Bund Deutscher Nordschleswiger (BDN). BDN will host this event in cooperation with the Danish and North Frisian minorities in Northern Germany – represented by their cultural and umbrella organisations Sydslesvigsk Forening and Friisk Foriining. In addition, a lot of other regional/local partners and sponsors will be part of this cultural highlight.
More information on the German minority border region here: www.nordschleswig.dk
