Opening Night in Münster

Left to right: Orchestra leader Midori Goto, conductor Fabrizio Ventura,
Geoffrey Keezer, Tim Garland, Joe Locke. Opening concert
of  Münsterland Festival 2011. Photo: Caroline Bartmann

A major five-week celebration of British culture got under way last night here in Münster  with a concert from Storms/ Nocturnes (Garland/ Keezer/ Locke) and the Sinfonieorchester Münster. I will be doing a fuller write-up on the JazzFM website.

At the launch event the Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Berlin, Andrew Noble, spoke in perfect German of  his long association with Münster, twinned with his home city of York. Irish Ambasador Dan Mulhall then got the best applause by asserting his connection: he was proud to declare that he hails from the province of..Munster. As an Irish mate of mine responded on Twitter: "Who wouldn't be."

One discovers interesting stuff by going to these events. E.g:  Münster University has a world-leading  centre for studies of Jonathan Swift

The Sinfonieorchester Münster played Tim Garland's arrangement of "Where is love?" from Oliver  to Lionel Bart, and Garland's Frontiers Suite. They had really got the hang of this complex music, and there was a palpable sense of enjoyment and full engagement from the stage. Storms/ Nocturnes seemed to have built a happy partnership in no time at all.

The second half was Holst's Planets, in which Ventura and the orchestra portrayed particularly vividly the power and intensity of Saturn, and the mystery of Neptune.

This is the sixth version of the festival, which has the strapline "The Best from Europe's North-West," and uses a wide variety of locations in the region to showcase the culture of a different country each year.

Tonight it's Tommy Smith, Arild Andersen and Paolo Vinaccia and a moated castle.....

Muensterland Festival website (in German)