BBC Radio 4

For the first week of every August, a sleepy village in western Serbia erupts with the sound of trumpets blasting. Officially it is the Dragacevo Trumpet Festival, the biggest of its kind in the world, and held annually since 1961. Unofficially it is named after the hosting village of Guca and is a celebration of folk music from across the Balkans. A hundred miles south of Belgrade, the Guca festival went virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world. But as Serbia emerges from a communist-style epoch and the breaking apart of Yugoslavia through the 1990s, the country is eager to push forward distinctive elements that define its more positive culture. The growth of the festival is evidence of the regeneration of Serbia and a change in the national mood since the bloody war of the 90s and its aftermath.

It is the biggest blast in the Balkans, a musical event that attracts the best of the world's brass musicians and their revel followers. Composer and musician, Llywelyn Ap Myrrdin reports on this wild and passionate music and culture.