h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Plenty of towns and regions hold summer festivals and most really put a lot of effort in to get some impressive music/dance/theatre together.

Our town does this every year - every other year it's a particularly big one. The most original part is the event called "Walk - Don't Walk" - originally with real American pedestrian traffic lights, which no longer work, but are still set up along the "Walk" route. Our music school, you see, is in the old 19th Century fortifications, with long underground passageways, opening out into larger storage areas every now and again. These were originally for storing ammunition, but now are perfect little concert rooms with a constant temperature and ideal acoustics for solo or chamber performances.

The audience is divided into 5 groups and they pass through the labyrinthine subterranean maze, stopping for 10 minutes to hear or see a short performance in these little rooms along the way. The performers have to do their little 10 minute show 5 times on the trot!

The choir which re-forms every other year to perform the Grand Finale at the end of the festival has been relegated to the opening concert this year, which takes place this coming Sunday. We are performing a jolly Mozart Mass in D major and a Cantata by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach ("Wohl dem, der den Herren fürchtet"). These works are very short, and only fill half of the concert time. The other half is to be performed by another local choir, and a local chamber orchestra, playing Hindemith.

The soloist in the chamber ensemble (music school connection here) is my son's violin teacher from way back when.

The absolute highlight of our festival must be Giora Feidman, the klezmer clarinettist. Quite a catch for a little town like ours.

The theme of the festival is dictated each year by the State. (Rheinland-Pfalz). They give it a very general title, to allow plenty of freedom of choice of works to perform. This year it is "Gott und die Welt". That is a German expression used for when two or more people hold a long conversation and get talking about every possible subject - Life, the Universe and everything, so to speak. This title of course, literally means "God and the world" and the emphasis is to be on works of art made for religious reasons.

This town being multicultural (large Muslim population), this will include many religions - including a performance of "1001 nights". The local university specialises in training translators, and one of its ex-alumni has recently re-translated this from the Arabic.

So that's what our little town is doing.

Who else has a summer festival and what are the highlights?

Oooh, Feidman! Sounds exciting.

Not a summer festival per se, but in three weeks (eep!) we're doing a Shakespeare performance with a similar idea to your concert - different scenes from Shakespeare performed in different clearings in the woods, which the audience has to walk between as a sort of backwards scene change. There's a ringmaster character - Oberon, essentially - leading them around and connecting the scenes into a coherent whole.

I've been roped into doing music for them again, on recorder, chalumeau, and tambourine. We have a four-person ensemble - all of us play recorder, one also has viols, and another plays the theorbo. All the pieces are from the original plays. We'll be doing them mainly as an introduction/warmup as the audience gathers, with a few fanfares and dances where appropriate during the piece.

We've already done this once in April, but that was in the theatre - and this will be three nights in a row, outdoors.

Summer festivals? Well I live in Edinburgh. We do have a little festival each summer. The city changes completely and it can be difficult to about your daily life because of the events.

I'm a member of Edinburgh Skeptics, and we put on a lot of events at the festival fringe. They'll all free, though we ask the audience for donations to cover expenses. This year we're doing an evening of skeptical events every week, mainly talks on a variety of topics, with lively discussion afterwards.

There's also a science festival, a literary festival, a film festival, and even a storytelling festival.

Around here most of our festivals are during the winter Tourist Season (No you can't shoot them for sport!). I am interested in your Walk/Don't Walk festival. If it makes you feel any better none of them work here either, they have all been replaced by symbols of a white silhouette of a pedestrian or a red hand, palm out signifying stop. Many flash the hand for twenty or thirty seconds, counting down before the traffic light changes.

My questions are;

1) Are any of the performances based on the 19th Century fort's history or is it just a convenient venue?

2) How many 10 minute performances are there usually?

3) How large are the 5 groups of visitors?

4) How are the groups led from place to place?

I have been trying to do something similar for a few years and would love to hear your insight.

Thanks
FS

Right, FS. Here goes:

<> The latter. The music school was one of the first institutions to move into a newly renovated part of the fortress, but this is just because they didn't have anything before, and the rows of well-insulated rooms were ideal for the protection of the expensive instruments and acoustically interesting, too.

However, the town does run guided tours with soldiers in period uniform on various weekends dotted throughout the year. The town's military history, whilst all-dominating, (a huge proportion of recruits come here for their basic training, and have done for a couple of centuries at least) and going back at least to Roman times, is fairly bland. The present fortress was built in the early 19th Century to protect the inhabitants from Napoleon and co, but was never attacked. In fact, its design was obsolete by the time it was finished, due to advances in ballistics and military tactics.

Hence, it is intact, and is at present being restored and the remaining buildings are put to use by the town for mainly cultural purposes, but, of late, some of the council's administrative offices are expanding into it, too.

<> There are 5-6. The secret is in the variety. You get a few kids playing rock music, then a recorder group playing ba-roque music. Maybe some Gregorian singing, then a pianist or a small string or woodwind group, interpretative dance, poetry recitals, performed by all sorts of people from beginners to professionals. The walks between the pieces vary from 2 - 5 minutes. Sometimes you have to wait for the last performance to end and the group before you to leave - sometimes the performers have been waiting for you for a couple of minutes. If you do the arithmetic, the whole thing lasts just over an hour. This is enough, as everyone is usually in very light summer clothing, and it starts to get chilly down in those stone basements. And also, a very important part is the ensuing concert or other performance which takes place above ground and with abundant amounts of and food.

<> Depending on the weather, the date and how much has leaked out about who is performing "down there" (this is never published) - from 10 - 50 people.

<> When you buy your entrance ticket, you are allocated a group number (1 - 5 or 6). All assemble in the parade ground outside and the groups are called together to follow their guide (a volunteer from the Friends of the Music School). Each group then follows their guide's lead to one of the positions along the route, the furthest one first. There is no contact between the groups - they just vaguely keep to the 10-15 minute time slots. When the recital finishes, the guide leads the group to the next position. This way, everyone gets to see all the performances and, as I said above, the groups perform their pieces 5-6 times in the space of an hour or so to changing audiences.

Sometimes the performers have given the guides a couple of notes in advance to introduce their work, sometimes they announce it themselves, sometimes they just play, smile, and wave you on.

<>. Good luck with it. You need the collaboration of a music school and sponsors or local authority funding to run it, though. Also somewhere to gather for a drink and a chat beforehand and afterwards is important. An hour is not very long, and people are prepared to stay on a little longer. Give them something to spend their money on!

I have performed once in one of these sessions, and been to at least one every summer since they have had them on offer. They are very popular. Most of the audience I notice are local, but maybe some of the ones I don't know have travelled a long way to experience this unique event.


A couple more points: There are usually two of these sessions - one at 7 pm and one at 9 pm. I can imagine this is because the lighting and infrastructure takes some setting up. They have followed these with a further event at 10:30 pm on some occasions - not a "Walk" but maybe a silent film with live music, or some light jazz. For some reason, they are always on Fridays.

Thank you for your reply T.C. it may be very helpful.

I am not looking for a musical performance, but a series of vignettes, or short skits to describe the life at our local 19th century fort (see my fort entry in peer review >shameless plug< ).
We generally have several groups in different areas of the fort and a Native American camp across the river and an open area in between were we have refreshments and music (usually live) at our December event.

I think we need more of the structured guide you indicate. I will be sharing your methods with crossed fingers.

Thank you again

FS

For your purposes, I'm not sure the rotation system would be suitable. Surely it would be better to perform the little dramatic vignettes in chronological order for the entire audience.

No, no you don't understand. All the vignettes are occurring at the same time. Several groups of different people are all sharing their own experiences and points of view about the war, their homes and families, due to the date, the upcoming Christmas celebration is often mentioned. Groups usually include a few officers, regular army soldiers, state militia soldiers, who were often given land for service, civilians who have been forced from their land, loyal Native American scouts, and of course the Seminoles who are watching for an opportunity to attack.
There is no proper order for listening to the stories, your system would work perfectly if I can get them to accept it.
Thanks again
FS

Oh, in that case, yes, it's a very good idea.

The visitors would really feel as if they'd time-travelled and are looking in on a snapshot of another time.

Opening concert last night. As I had feared, not quite as many people came as they used to come when we had the closing concert. It was pouring with rain, but this time we were in the church instead of in the parade ground, so that didn't matter so much.

Another choir opened the proceedings with some classics (Bach cantatas etc). They weren't bad for a village choir - their conductor is a real professional and has brought them up to a high standard. They even sang something he had written himself.

Then a small five-part ensemble sang some early music. They were all professionals (teachers at the music school and their associates) and the music carried beautifully in the church.

Then the men from the village choir came back on and sang a Pilgrim's Song by Arvo Pärt. Lovely to hear a male voice choir - all the famous male voice choirs in the villages around here have taken women in to prevent them dissolving altogether, but the men on their own have an inimitable sound.

After the break, the chamber orchestra played a Song of Mourning by Hindemith (soloist was my son's old violin teacher. Actually he's a viola player, and this must have been quite a rare thing: a work with a viola solo part)

Then we sang our W.F. Bach and our Mozart. Although things hadn't been gonig well, the final result was spectacular and we were really pleased with it!

W.F. Bach "Wohl dem, der den Herrn fürchtet"
Mozart: Mass in D major, KW 194