Days 71-74: The Rudolstadt Festival

Disclaimer: All voyages in this blog are being taken safely in the comfort of our imaginations - based on our plans and intentions for travel in 2020. What is reality after all? 

This weekend was the culmination of our 2020 travels (to be): the Rudolstadt Festival.  This was their 30th anniversary festival, which started in its present form in 1991 (though it took over from an eastern bloc song and dance festival that had been running since the 1950s). We had been there on two previous occasions, in 2015 and in 2018 - and enjoyed returning again. Previously, the weather had either been very hot (2015) or raining(2018) - but this year it was in the low 20s and fine and a very pleasant place to be.

The Festival takes over the whole town of Rudolstadt, with around 27 stages in the park, in the schloss on the hill:

where there are two main stages, as well as smaller more intimate venues:

 

There are more stages in the medieval main town, including in the church and theatres:

 the school, street stages - including lots of buskers throughout the town:

 and the Marktplatz stage:

Across the river, past the train station, are the main stages in the park:

We still think we've never discovered all these locations!

Part of the enjoyment of this Festival is meeting up with old friends. We drove into Rudolstadt from Bad Berka on the Thursday afternoon, and our first stop was to visit the media office to catch up with our friend Miriam Rossius, the Head of Press and Public Relations for the Festival:

It was wonderful to see her (and her family: Frank and Joscha) again, as they had visited Melbourne a few years ago. We picked up our Festival accreditation:

and (importantly) the car parking ticket and, on our way out of there, bumped into our friend Petr Dorůžka from Prague - who was the presenter of the Czech Music Crossroads conference we'd attended a couple of years ago:

Our first afternoon was spent having a wander around the old town (an orientation for Lawrie and a re-orientation for Garry) and finding a restaurant for some lunch. There we met up with Joe Malignaggi from 3CR and Alexandra Voulgaris who, with some friends, had just arrived from Melbourne, via stopovers in Sicily and Greece:

After some food and a catch-up, we headed over to the park for its main stages. Garry and Lawrie were immediately reminded of the WOMADelaide setting:

And this familiarity was enhanced when we again met with Joe, who was preparing to interview the main band that evening for 3CR:

We also were able to introduce Joe and others to our new friend Christian Pliefke from CPL-Music, who was here with the team from ProFolk, selling their and his music:

The catch-ups continued: Also here, by prior arrangement, were our Portuguese friends Jota (João Martins) and Maggie (Margarida Costa), both now living in Munich, who had driven up to attend the Festival again, and who had booked accommodation nearby:

As well, it was no surprise to meet serial Festival attender, Rosa Coyle-Hayward (also from Melbourne) who was here in a semi-professional role to check the scene:

What a substantial Australian or Australian-linked contingent this year!

The first band we saw, both informally while setting up, and then, as darkness came on, in full Festival mode, were the Palestinian Jordanian electronic music group 47Soul, who are one of the main forces behind the Shamstep electronic dance music that incorporates traditional dabke but in new ways:

This was a fairly late evening to start our Festival, so we headed back to Bad Berka (about a 30 minutes' drive away), and returned the next day (Friday). 

We were early enough to secure some front row seats at the main stage in the schloss (castle/mansion):

to see Trad Attack! from Estonia:

We'd very much enjoyed the Estonian focus a couple of years ago, but missed having this group in the line-up ... so it was fantastic that they were here this time.

There's another stage up here, and Jota joined us again:

to see the Corsican group A Filetta:

We'd previously worked out the importance of planning what to see, in order to minimise the amount of walking, but we now headed downhill to the old church (an amazing acoustic space, but with limited capacity and creaking seats and floors), where Lakha Khan from India was playing:

Later, it was off to the park again, across the river, as crowds started to build. As well as two large stages there (where the festival started the previous night), there's a dance tent, where the Polish group, the Warsaw Sentimental Orchestra was firing up:

They got a great reaction from the crowd - but we were content to watch rather than join in:

As the evening progressed, we stayed in the park, eating from the many food stalls there, and caught the Ukrainian group of Felix Shinder and Dengi Vpered: 

as well as the Ghanaian group Santrofi - who rounded out the day:

On Saturday, we returned for more music. First up, starting in the schloss again (it's important to only walk up there once a day! - though there is an occasional shuttle bus) was Andreas Gabriel Verändler from Switzerland:

then Brushy One String from Jamaica, in a more intimate stage:

From there, it was to the central Markplatz stage, where Garry was taking photos:

and the group Cimarrón from Colombia was on stage:

We met up with Jota and Maggie again, and had a drink at one of the biergartens in the park to celebrate this regular meeting with them:

That evening, the American-Canadian singer Rufus Wainwright continued the tradition of famous singer-songwriter music in the park, which Graham Nash had been involved with last time we were here:

He was followed on the other main stage there, by the French group Les Ogres de Barback:

You can see we're slowing down already - there's been lots of walking from stage to stage; lots of great music; lots of sleeping in the next day. 

On the final day - Sunday - after presenting the Global Village program from our apartment in Bad Berka in order to share our music with a wider audience, we headed back to Rudolstadt for the last time this year.

There we were in time to see the Greek singer Maria Farantouri on stage with the Thuringian Symphony Orchestra Saalfeld-Rudolstadt:

This is a bit of a Festival tradition: to have a featured artist to work with the Symphony Orchestra. In previous years it had been Arlo Guthrie - and many others.

Back down in the town, we also caught up with Scottish band Imár in the Markplatz:

and the Israeli group Light in Babylon in a nearby small venue:

Our final memory of the Festival for 2020 is of the German outfit Rasga Rasga, most appropriately as the focus this year was (for the festival's 30th) on music from Germany:  

We farewelled our friends and fellow travellers, headed back to Bad Berka to catch up on some sleep. There's just one more day in the area before we drive to Frankfurt and head on home. We can't believe this epic trip is close to an end!