Last weekend, there was a lot of music in the Streets of Nuremberg, as my city was hosting the Bavarian Trombone Choir Festival 2022. Instruments of course are not limited to trombones, the choirs use all imaginable brass instruments. With a turnout of about 2.500 players from Bavaria and beyond, Nuremberg’s Old Town turned into the stage for a gigantic brass festival. For a visual tour of the event, continue after the jump ….
Who would have thought. These days I’m constantly being out and about with the camera, heading from one event to another. Too busy to still find frequently time to edit, post-process and turning the results into a blog post. Not so good for the blogger, but really good for the photographer. Last weekend Nuremberg hosted the 2022 Festival of the Bavarian Trombone Choirs. A massive event, with 2.500 players.
The motto for the weekend was “For heaven’s sake”. This, by no means, refers to the size of the resulting body of sound. Trombone choirs love making music in such large groups. More over, the motto reflects the fact that brass players see themselves as lively and invigorating groups of their church (almost exclusively Lutheran) congregations and want to bring a bit of heavenly atmosphere to the people with their sounds. And for sure, the players from several hundred choirs made the streets of Nuremberg properly resound.
The contagious enthusiasm of the musicians was visible everywhere, not only in the small performances of the individual choirs across the old town, but also when they all played together in the massive joint concerts on the main square.
Not only was I roaming the festival with a camera in my hands for the pure photographic fun of it, but for a much more personal reason, as The Significant Other as well as some good friends were also participants, being members of our local trombone choir.
A real highlight was the Serenade evening concert of the full choir on the town square. I was sitting in the middle of the players, and got the full sound experience from two and a half thousand brass instruments. While the sky was covered with heavy clouds, only a few raindrops fell towards the end of the performance.
Another highlight of the festival was the joint performance of one of Germany’s most famous boys choir, the Windsbacher Knabenchor, together with the Bavarian youth brass choir. It was great concert in beautiful St. Sebald church in the heart of Nuremberg’s Old Town.
The main event was the celebration of Sunday mass on the main square. Four conductors, standing on scaffolding, handled the huge trombone choir. The sound filling the square was truly magnificent!
It was a truly memorable event for everyone. Not only had I so much joy listening to brass music, but also a lot of fun doing a different kind of street photography this weekend. As the Leica was (and still is) in the repair-shop, I reverted back to a mix of iPhoneography with my iPhone 12 Pro Max and using my trusted Olympus OM-D E-M1X with the mZuiko 12-100 F/4. Postprocessing was done in Lightroom Classic.
I hope you enjoyed this visual tour of the brass festival on the streets of Nuremberg.
Have a great Monday
Marcus
Related Posts: