Klapa Singing

Klapa is unaccompanied multipart singing from Dalmatia, usually four to eight voices, one leading and the rest filling in below, sung standing in a half circle with no instruments and no conductor. The repertoire is mostly the sea, the town, wine and leaving. It grew out of church singing and men's gatherings in the coastal towns and islands, and it is on the UNESCO intangible heritage list. You meet it in three forms: staged concerts and festivals through the summer, singing at mass on feast days, and the version that matters most, a group who happen to be in a stone passage after dinner and start because the acoustics are there.

What you actually see

• A stone courtyard concert - the standard summer setting, chosen for the way sound holds in it.
• The Omiš festival - the long-running klapa festival held in that town each July.
• Church singing - klapa groups performing at mass and on feast days along the coast.
• The palace vestibule in Split - the domed Roman room where groups sing for the echo.

When to go

The season runs from June to September, when almost every coastal town programmes concerts and the Omiš festival gathers groups from across Dalmatia in July. Feast days bring church performances. Out of season you depend on local choirs rehearsing, though cultural centres in Split and Šibenik run evenings through the winter.

Honest expectations

Much of what visitors hear in summer is staged for them, sold by the ticket and sung through a microphone, which flattens the point of the form. The groups singing on the palace floor in Split are usually selling recordings between numbers. The songs are in dialect and untranslated, so the meaning passes you by. A church service or a local festival gives a far better sense of it.

Nearby

Omiš, Split and the Dalmatian islands all programme klapa evenings through the summer.