The venue for the tenth concert as part of the “Höfefestival in the Wesel district” was the beautiful Girndt family farm in Neukirchen-Vluyn. Hostess Angelika Girndt, who together with her husband Hans-Gerd moved into the Buschmannshof in December 1985 as an extended family with four generations after reconstruction and renovation work, welcomed well over 100 guests and was delighted with the enthusiastic response to this eventful concert series, which Rüdiger Eichholtz from the Kulturprojekte Niederrhein 2021 association launched.
What makes this series special, in addition to the unusual venues, are the many different music ensembles that perform and their programs. The ensemble “Tamtam-Project”, which had performed the day before at “Weber’s Hof” in Moers, performed at the Girndts’ goat farm on Friday evening. The quintet consisted of André Meisner, who not only played duduk and saxophone, but also put together the program, arranged the music and hosted the evening. He was supported by guitarist Gürsoy Tanc and Alexander Morsey, who played bass, whether plucked, bowed or blown. Also included was Fethi Ak, who handled all his percussion parts with great dexterity, and guest musician Johannes Bär, a jack of all trades (and not only) on brass instruments.
The “Tamtam Project” is an extraordinary constellation of musical cultures and styles that builds a bridge between the sound worlds of the Orient and the Occident, and beyond. There was Western music as well as Oriental, African and Far Eastern music. The concert began the evening with “Summertime”, the most famous melody from the opera “Porgy and Bess” by George Gershwin. Musically, this conveyed a lot of melancholy and sadness, but also a lot of optimism and optimism.
Songs were played that were sung in Armenian, Serbian and Italian, or in languages that are in danger of extinction. It became clear that André Meisner is not only a master of his craft on the Armenian national instrument, the duduk, or his saxophone, but was also able to perform all of the songs in the respective national language, sometimes together with Johannes Bär.
The music that was most entertaining to the audience was “Bella Ciao”, a song that became famous in the version sung by the Italian partisans during World War II. The final applause was accordingly long and intense.
