The second day of our festival, I started wondering whether the concept of me presenting the festival as well, besides playing, conducting the Workshop Orchestra, organizing the meetings between musicians, and playing myself with Yom was such a good idea after all…. It fitted well in the idea of a festival in which the ‘meeting’ is the central concept, but it was certainly tiresome! I was running past everybody, which kind of reduces the idea of ‘meeting people’ also considerably….
We had decided in the afternoon to present the supporting programme, the 18 piece Baraná Festival Workshop Orkest, in the concert hall instead of in the small studio, and we were glad after all: it would have been too loud in the studio. During the soundcheck, the band was rather nervous, but during the concert they had a great focus on blending their sounds together. It sounded really nice, some very expressive solo’s also.
Siberian singer Yulia Charkova presented an intriguing program of throat singing. I had the feeling she could even have made more out of it by bringing more variety into it. She played a very nice song on a drum she brought, I would have liked to hear more of that. Being very very cool, she agreed to do a meeting with cello player Ernst Reijseger right after her own concert (quickly changed from her traditional gown into a hip outfit!). Ernst crawled all around her musically, up to the point where she started smiling, and started putting in weird sounds herself. Sky clearing moment, the beauty of improvisation.
Wang Li and Yom had been the talk of the town of the latest Music Meeting, and appeared to have become even more intense since. Their program is about nature, but they can sound like an impressive machine also, sometimes. I had the opportunity to play a duet with Yom myself, after their concert, and that clicked really well. Had some nice ‘clarinet talk’ with him afterwards, he was very much interested in my alto clarinet, an instrument that he had never encountered as yet.
Then it was time to close the festival with the world première of our new project Elektro Shaman. Being a première, offcourse there were some shaky moments, but you could hear also the energy this band can produce. As a surprise-act, we had the original musicians of our first 2002 project Barana & Co on stage for the last song: violinist Monique Lansdorp, and saz players Mehmet Uludag and Hasan Kazan. After starting with a totally wrong tune, it all went well, and especially Monique played a great solo. 10 years Baraná, hurray!
Het Baraná Festival Workshoporkest
Duo Yom – Wang Li
Afra and Jeff during our concert with Baraná Elektro Shaman
Ten years after our first concert, Mehmet Uludag, Jeff Sopacua (not in the original line-up), Hasan Kazan, Afra Mussawissade, Steven kamperman, Monique Lansdorp, Ernst Reijseger
All photo’s by Ronald Rijntjes, Cultuurpodium.nl, behalve Baraná Festival Workshop Orkest: Maarten Kerkhof