It is so easy to criticize; we do it all the time. We hear it everywhere, particularly about this year’s Inter-national Music Festival. No headlin-ers. Who are these acts? Why only two days? There are answers to these questions and all of them will boil down to a simple question of money. The crisis. The Town Hall is in debt. The big acts are too expen-sive. And so on. And they’re all true. The International Music Festival of Jimena started out in 2001 as a vision by music director David Hon-eyball (now deceased) when, on a visit to Jimena a couple of years before, he saw the castle as a won-derful venue for a Classical Music Festival. The idea took hold in the minds of foreign residents, who were quick to raise funds among themselves to get it started. The Council took up the idea, and the concept was expanded to include

other genres. Commercial sponsors offered their support and govern-ment agencies were agreeable to subsidies, after much begging. The castle was dismissed as too difficult to reach, so the venues we use to-day were introduced and success-ful. Nobody believed it would happen, including myself. But something big was afoot when the Town Hall began giving away flowers to be put in windows to pretty the town up. Soon, everyone was painting their house fronts. The village was getting tidied up, quickly, before the festival started. And there it was: five days of mu-sic in the streets. Music many resi-dents had never heard before and plenty they had. The memory of the fireworks at the end still make my hairs stand on end.

Jimena was on the map. The little

plenty they had. The memory of the fireworks at the end still make my hairs stand on end. Jimena was on the map. The little white village at the very edge of the Campo de Gibraltar, in the boondocks as far as the province of Cádiz and the Junta de Anda-lucía were concerned, had come alive after a long time asleep. The first four or five editions were absolutely wonderful. Stars and stars-in-the-making were ea-ger to perform here. They said the atmosphere was fantastic, the people welcoming. They could even relax among the audience. So it continued for a long while; up to the sixth edition in 2006, perhaps.

____________

There’s nothing wrong

with the Festival that

better financial times

will not cure.

It would be a great

shame to lose it

__________

What had happened? It had

grown too big. To use a well-worn Spanish phrase: Empezamos la casa por el tejado (‘We started building the house with the roof tiles’). Even the man who had done so much to promote it, for-mer Mayor Ildefonso Gómez, ad-mitted it with a tinge of regret. The acts were asking for fortunes because they had ever increasing riders (that’s the little things on

their contracts that include what kind of sandwiches and what brand whiskey they would drink) as well as their caches (that’s the figures their managers negotiate for a performance). But it wasn’t just that: Jimena had started big and had nowhere to go but bigger. Until the bubble burst. Every-

one’s bubble began to burst last year: yours, mine, the Festival’s. And last year’s edition was a reflec-tion of things to come. There was a moment in 2008, and again this year, when Mayor Pascual Collado, who had been Councillor for Culture the year be-fore and in charge of the Festival, was seriously considering not hav-ing one at all. He was eventually convinced that the event had a ‘brand name’ and should be kept going, even in reduced circum-stances. After all, we said, it would be very difficult to start again from scratch when things get better. The Festival organizers have done the very best they can. The acts, while not headliners, were quality acts. Tickets were hardly exorbitant any longer. The atmos-phere in the town was just as ex-citing as ever. There’s nothing wrong with the Festival that better financial times will not cure. It would be a great shame to lose it. That’s why I support it and why I urge you to do the same. (Alberto Bullrich, 2009)

The show must go on, but how? Not only do the acts have to be booked, preferably well ahead in time though not always possible, but all the 'extras' have to be set up. Police, park-ing, cleaning, toilets, seating, stage set-ting … it’s a long list. The person in charge of putting it all together has always been Eloisa García. Her job title is Festival Co-ordinator and she’s very good at it, though she’ll tell you she could never do it without a team of helpers, which is true. The number of details Elo has to think about, even for a two-day festival, is astounding. Experience tells her that nothing is over until the festival is over, though she is visibly more relaxed once it’s under way. This year, Sabrina Vlaskalic had her

luggage lost, so a dress had to be bor-rowed for her. So was Kroke’s, and a sound pedal had to be found. Where do you find a sound pedal in Jimena? Elo did. And these are only what we’ve heard about. When the budget gets tight, do we rent as many chairs as last year? Can we cut down on lighting anywhere? These sort of questions are dealt with by the Organizing Committee, which meets frequently and of which Elo is a key part. Many of them are answered by the acts’ ‘riders’, the small print on their contracts. This year, Macaco de-manded over 3 metres of space be-tween the stage and the public, under-standable if you were at their concert. Elo keeps a beady eye on these, too.

4

Elo can be seen before, during and after the festival, looking cool and ele-gant - but she doesn’t miss a thing. It’s hard to find a photo of her without a mobile at her ear. She is in touch with electricians, volunteer team leaders, performers’ managers, members of the Organizing Committee, the Mayor and Councillors, everyone, including her own large family. She rushes, coolly and elegantly,

from venue to venue and will admit to never having seen a complete set by any act for nine years. She is there at the beginning of a concert and at the end, rarely in the middle. The secret is not to let them see you sweat. The show goes on, simple as that. And it’s not for lack of prepara-tion on Elo’s part, for which the rest of us should offer our thanks and con-gratulations.

a wonderful surprise

Yiddish music is not a genre we generally hear in these parts. Sephardic is more usual, because of its roots in this part of Spain. But the Organizing Committee chose well once more. Kroke, Cracow in Yiddish, brought with them the sounds of their native Poland in a mod-ernised expression. The slow pace of it soon turns into happy rhythms that keep your feet tapping. It was good to see that lovely, cosy venue at Llano de la Victoria full of eager specta-tors ready for … what?

We were able to chat with them later; they have been at festivals all over the world and the common thread, they say, is: “We are always a surprise.” That makes them ambassadors of their music and their people. And charming ambassadors they certainly are. Watching from the wings it is easy to see how much they enjoy what they do - and that comes across to the audience in great dollops of simpatía. Does this mean we add Yid-dish music to our ever growing collection? Of course, why not?

a wonderful surprise

Quality again. This year’s pro-gramme contained a range of genres, styles and plenty of good music in two different settings. The inaugural ceremony had the Orquesta Manuel de Falla, a thoroughly professional orchestra of mainly young musicians, which has been part of the Festival since 2001. On the second day, classical guitarist Sabrina Vlaskalic didn’t attract too large an audience. Pity, for the Serbian presented a programme full of clear notes that ranged from those of De Fossa and Bach to Manen. The fact that she was wearing bor-rowed clothes detracted not an iota from her performance. The third day brought the So-loists of the Seville Baroque Or-chestra. The whole orchestra was here in 2004 and it was now

the turn of the principals: Gui-llermo Peñalver, José Manuel Na-varro, Mercedes Ruiz, Ventura Rico y Carlos García-Bernalt. Their programme consisted of Telemann’s ‘Paris Quartets’, which was perfect for the acous-tics at the Convent. But this year was also an ex-perimental one in this section. Classical music moved out of the Convent and into the Llano de la Victoria in the person of Pilar Ju-rado. With some difficulties with the wind, which blew into the micro-phones, the soprano, composer and musical director offered her PJProject, a fusion of apparently disparate music ranging from op-era, electronic, pop, rock and Brazilian rhythms. A risky choice by the organizers that was none-theless successful.

They’re like old friends. They are old friends, among themselves and of the Festi-val’s. They were here in 2001 and a couple of times since then. And they always have us dancing in our seats.

Mitch Jansen (cornet and vocals), Stew Napier (clarinet and vocals), Mike Izatt (banjo, harmonica and vocals), Jonas Molbeck (sousaphone, double bass and guitar) and Andy Pea-cock (trombone and bass, tuba and trumpet if needed) are the ‘new look’ band. They still go out as a 7 piece for some func-tions but have recently, in an effort to be 'really' authentic,

started to play as a 4 or 5 piece without piano and drums.

They are famous for their walkabouts among the audi-ence, though that didn’t hap-pen at this year’s Festival. Through no fault of their own, they were set too far back on the stage and much of that marvellous connection with the audience was inevitably missing.

Nevertheless, they had the young and not-so in their pockets. They got a standing ovation at the end of their performance, as they always do.

...a grand idea

Don’t most music festivals have street musicians? It’s about time they were encouraged at Jimena’s. From the very beginning, back in 2001, it was suggested as a good idea. And this year proved it right. The concept of a competition served as a way of attracting mu-

sicians, though only four groups turned up: Samarcanda Ortíz (Mexico), Erik ‘El Buda’ (Tanzania) and Alvin Alves (France), Juan Albu (Romania), and Andrés Gon-zález (Granada, Spain). They were fun and everyone enjoyed them. The winner of the €500 prize was Andrés González.

By some counts there were three thousand people on Jimena’s main square on Satur-day night. Macaco brought he crowds in, some from as far as Seville and Malaga. His show is a display of mul-timedia talent. Ten musicians and a DJ, plus his own light and sound people, made this a magnificent event. But there is more to Macaco than music.

This is a man with a mission and a message. If you happened to know that he recently composed the sound track for a National Geographic documentary, you are getting close. His is a message about com-munication between peoples and nations, about the environment and we do and don’t do. You get the message.

His other mission was to make us

move, which he did with his great hit

Moving.

OUR THANKS ARE DUE TO ALL OF

THEM, EVEN IF WE COULDN’T GET A

PHOTO OF THEM ALL

Media coverage has always been a problem, not so much to get information out but rather to get feedback. So far there has been no follow-up on what kind of coverage we are actually getting. Another problem is lead-in time: most magazines need at least two months and weeklies two weeks, minimum. Too often, information can’t be supplied be-cause the organization started too late. This particularly applies to foreign lan-guage print media. Good media coverage and good feed-back (a selling tool to potential sponsors) is essential to the Festival’s success. We have a ‘brand name’, let’s use it!