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Lack of Funding
René Giessen plays a harmonica and conducts Enio Morricone during a sound check in the desert. Giessen is hoping the desert could provide an open-air spot for a future concert. (Rosemarie Frühauf/The Epoch Times)
Engelhardt Unaeb, too, sang as a soloist. The baritone with rasta coils, whose head voice breaks into a powerful alto, is, as a singer and composer, a local star. Just recently, he was selected as the first Namibian to serve as a messenger of the African continent for the project “S.O.U.L” (Singers of United Lands). Together with three other singers, each representing a different continent, he will tour the United States for six months to present authentic songs from his homeland in workshops and concerts.
“How he lives is unimaginable—in a small room, in which the keyboard takes half the space,” Berker said.
“Actually, someone like him should be assisted by the government,” she said. As this doesn’t happen, the Swakopmundians collected money for his journey. “We hope he gets new inspiration abroad but still keeps in touch with us.”
For Music Week, Engelhardt, as everyone affectionately calls him (“engel” means “angel” in German), wrote a children’s musical. “Desert Express” describes the dream of a little boy, who learns from the animals of the desert to think of others first. He sees how an elephant with a kettledrum nearly tramples a lion to death while combating for scarce water and from this he learns a lesson.
“Desert Express” premiered with a children’s choir, beginning violinists, and Unaeb as narrator, to great acclaim, despite the stage fright of all the young participants.
Ten children came from the Arts Performance Center (APC) in Tsumeb, in city in north Namibia. The project of the Swiss Lis Hidber, an artist and social worker, APC gives street children and HIV orphans a chance to change their perspective on life by means of a comprehensive musical education. About 100 students are currently enrolled in the APC.
Berker would like to enable more APC children to take part in Music Week but the money for food and accommodations is lacking.
Dreams for the Future
“Music Week got a push in the last two years, and we have to think about where we want to head to. We have definitely left behind the small-scale, straightforward, amateur performances we were giving five years ago,” Berker said.
With increasing professionalism, the tempting potential to commercialize the festival grows. Possibly the Swakopmund Music Week could become interesting to tourists.
Currently, Namibia is mainly a Safari destination. But for the first time, the Namibia Tourism Board has become a main sponsor of Music Week. The board’s goal is to use tourism to improve the living conditions of the local population—this goal matches that of Music Week.
How this might be accomplished, however, remains a question. The event already takes the largest stage and all the different hotels in town to their limits.
How would an open-air event in a spectacular location present itself to prospective tourists? The committed musician, Giessen has several ideas to publicize this festival. For instance, might not a concert in the moon landscape of the million-year-old rock formations of the Namib Desert attract attention?
Giessen foresees the benefits of such a concert going mainly to the children he teaches harmonica. Giessen envisions creating a music project with borrowed instruments and volunteer musicians, comparable to the youth symphony orchestra in Venezuela. This might be manageable with some prominent supporters from Germany, he believes.
Wrapping Up
Traditionally, the musicians perform the final concert twice, repeating it the night following the final concert, and then afterwards celebrate. In spite of the extended party atmosphere, the musicians and the audience dispersed quickly after the final applause.
Some participants were supposed to leave as early as seven the next morning. Giessen was leaving early the next day, too, for a sound check in the desert, the first step in making his dream project a reality.
Before leaving, the light technician apologized to Berker for a glitch in the show: during Franz Lehar’s “Ballsirenen Walzer” the spotlights on stage suddenly went off—and the emergency lighting went on. But this kind of electricity shortage occurs at any major event, he added.
Berker just smiled, composed as always, she said, “On this electric line, we, the hotel, two restaurants, and the Christmas market depend … Yes, that is Africa.”
The Namibia Tourism Board graciously aided in the arrangements for Rosemarie Frühauf’s travel.
