Bálingen 2009
"Sackpfeifen in Schwaben" it´s a bagpipe festival from all over Europe and we have been invited for the second time. The event is every three years frequency at the city of Balingen, of about 33,000 inhabitants, situated in southwestern Germany. This year they have invited 22 groups from 18 different countries. Which involved a large number of musicians who exceeded a hundred persons. This has constrained the number of musicians in our group who have been invited, but after various discussions, there were seven.
The festival took place the 15th to 18th October and our first show (Thursday 15) at the theater headquarters of the festival was really apreciated, the picture of the news of the event in local newspapers of the day Balingen 16 was our group. That morning we went to a performance in a secondary school nearby, where students and teachers showed a high interest in our music and island traditions. Later, together with other participating groups, were received by the Mayor, who after an speech gave us a present. Again we were invited to play a song of our repertoire that was greeted with loud applause. Note that only two groups were invited to perform at the event protocol. Then we took a photo with all participants and local authorities. This photo also published in local newspapers to illustrate the news and a small image of our previous performance.
After that we did a parade through downtown to Balingen Evangelist Church where we did a sound test to see how the instruments sounded and we had to act then to a concert with all groups in the Festival. This great concert could not be done in the same place in the last Festival as the main theater of the city of Balingen was in renovation.
As a curiosity we mention that we had some very original dressing room were settled into a library. Our performance, limited by time, as were many, was composed of two songs: Jota de Sant Antoni and Espatadanza. The audience showed that they liked a lot with their applause.
The following day (Saturday, 17) was planned to go to a parade at market in downtown, but bad weather and very cold rain forced the cancellation of this event. In return we went to visit a museum of musical instruments. Visit that was very interesting and kept us busy. On the evening of that day we made the last official concert. All groups did a performance of about fifteen minutes. With how long is this event and the type of music that sounds, it's amazing how many people can listen to from beginning to end.
On Sunday 18, continued bad weather, even snowed in the morning for a while. Despite this led us to conduct a parade through downtown Balingen, where a couple of brave and with umbrella in hand, listened us with faces of satisfaction.
Bàlingen edition 2006... click |
