Two weeks ago, I went to Stadtmusik Kandern (community band) practice for the first time. Yesterday (Saturday) I played my first concert with them! They don’t have a bassoon for me to play, so I have been playing tuba. The other tuba player is a German man named Heinrich. We have fun playing the oom-pah parts in polkas. We play a very wide variety of music (everything from the Beatles to Tango), but somehow the tuba part does not change much.
The concert was part of a festival called Budenfest. It is Kandern’s annual town celebration that runs in conjunction with a horse show with participants from France, Switzerland, and Germany. As a fundraiser, Stadtmusik Kandern had a food booth there. I helped out by dishing out “Pommes” (fries) onto plates of Currywurst and Steak.
The fries cooking in oil
I got to watch the horse show a bit, too.
The jumping event was really fun to watch.
After serving fries all morning, we played a 4:30 concert in the Blumenplatz in downtown Kandern. There were more booths there. Holidays in Germany = Lots of Food. In the middle of the concert, the mayor gave a little speech, mentioned that a couple of the local politicians were there, and announced the free beer. Suddenly, we had a very large crowd for our concert! This was the only concert I have ever played in where the players were given free drinks in the middle of the concert. I had Apfelschorle (carbonated apple juice).
Most concerts will be more formal, but this was a fun, low-key experience.
