"It's wild and amusing, a Balkan mix of Romany and Turkish music that has a purity to itself and an original, danceable quality," is how promoter Jiří Sedlák describes the Balkan Brass sound. Indeed, a closer look at the inventive acts in the upcoming two-day festival suggests that this is no run-of-the-mill Habsburg-era waltz-and-polka session, despite the photos of musicians posing with the usual trumpets, accordions and tubas.

Europe's Balkan peninsula, which includes western Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Serbia and Greece (and every place in between), provides an intense crossroads of contemporary and traditional music from which today's Balkan and Balkan-inspired musicians draw inspiration. Sedlák and others attribute the growing popularity of the Balkan sound in Western Europe to the films of Serbian-born Emir Kusturica, in particular Underground and Time of the Gypsies. Another factor in bringing the sound West were expat Balkan DJs who in the '90s introduced their native sound to urban dance floors in Germany.

The liner notes of Slovenski Bal's 2003 CD Balkan Merak claim that the band "steps out like a herd of young elephants jogging through the oriental breeze," and that's not empty braggadocio. Comprising French and Serbian members, Slovenski Bal will headline Tuesday night's performance with their joyous twist on the Balkan Brass sound, with clarinet, accordion and trumpet taking the lead. Opening the evening will be Belgium's Va Fan Fahre, who were rated an impressive 127th in the "Top 1,000 of the World Music Charts Europe" rankings for 2005. It's no wonder, with the way the band gives brass music a ska swing. Their new CD, Romski Robbery (on a label appropriately named Zephyrus, after the Thracian god of the wind), includes collaborations with musicians from India, who lend a few of the tracks a Far Eastern spice.

"A wild, heaving mass" is how the BBC's Garth Cartwright described German audiences' reaction when DJ Shantel began adding Balkan Brass breaks to his techno set. Using the Balkan sound was natural to 2005 BBC World Music Award winner Shantel, who calls his successful nights at Frankfurt's Schauspiel "the Bucovina Club" after his mother's Romanian hometown. When the undeniable king of Balkan Brass, Boban Markovič, is asked about the music's growing appeal in the West, he says, "I am happy about it — good music, fantastic bands and DJs like Shantel."

Boban and Marko Markovič's Orchestra will headline the festival's second night, playing what Boban describes as the "more Mediterranean and Balkan" thread of brass music. Although it had not been confirmed at press time, someone from Markovič's band may join the opening set of Gipsy.cz's new material. It sets a new direction that Gipsy says is still "strictly hip-hop, fat beats and raps," but also gets down with a more ethno sound.

Finishing the evening will be a crew that has been shaking Berlin dance floors since the early '90s known as the BalkanBeats DJs. Founded by Robert Soko in 1993, BalkanBeats initially set out to create an intimate Berlin oasis for refugees of the Bosnian War. Soko soon found that the Balkan Beats sound drew a larger cross-section of enthusiasts from Berlin's dance club scene. In recent years the BalkanBeats have expanded their audiences, taking their legendary mixes to New York, France, Poland and the Czech Republic.