here’s my recipe for Spinach and Feta pie (as tested by John Kenny, Chloe and Si when they stopped with the marimba en route to Marseille)
A few handfuls of washed spinach
1 onion finely chopped
a wee bit of olive oil
200g feta cheese
some wee tomatoes
capers
2 eggs
Grated nutmeg
1 packet filo pastry, thawed
Pre-heat your oven to 180c / gas 4
Grease a tin with olive oil and line it with 4 or 5 sheets of filo pastry, making sure it hangs over the side so you can fold it over the mixture. Leave some sheets to put on the top.
In a pan, fry the chopped onion in the oil. When it’s clear add in the washed spinach and wait for it to wilt. Grate some nutmeg over the mixture and take it off the stove to cool.
In a jug or bowl, beat two eggs and crumble in the feta cheese. Add the capers and season with pepper (remember the feta is already salty) add to the cooled spinach.
Fill the lined tin with the mix and put some halved baby tomatoes on top, cover over with the pastry.
Cook in the oven for 35-40 minutes until brown. This is lovely with potato wedges or salad. Yum!
Wow!!
Small is Beautiful, Lieux Publics, Marseille
I’ve just returned from a La Banda Europa gig in Marseill and it was the best ever!!
This event saw la banda taking over the centre of Marseille, performing in small groups on trains and in the station (Gare St Charles) then forming up into a procession out into the open air in order to perform en mass under the stars on a specially built stage in the heart of the city! It was great to see everybody again. This was the kind of life afirming gig that makes ypou glad to be alive!
We were awarded a standing ovation by the 3000 strong audience, members of which were crying and laughing at the same time…..what a night we had!!!!
this was the timetable
Spectacle à Marseille l Marseille finale
Samedi 10 l 20.30 l Gare Saint-Charles
et à partir de 22h, invitation à la danse sur des airs joués
par les musiciens de La Banda Europa
Saturday 10 l 8.30pm l Marseille Saint-Charles train station
And after 10 o’clock, come and join us for a dance under the stars!
Prélude depuis Aubagne l In the train from Aubagne
Dans le train pour Marseille de 20h08 (arrivée 20h25)
In the 8.08pm Marseille train (arriving in Marseille 8.25pm)
Prélude depuis Martigues l In the train from Martigues
Dans le train pour Marseille de 19h35 (arrivée 20h22)
In the 7.35pm Marseille train (arriving in Marseille 8.22pm)
We are working on a La Banda Europa Youth Orchestra at the moment and intend to base the first summer camp in Aberdeen in August 2009. This will take the form of a three week summer camp including forays into the local community with a grand performance at the end of the three weeks.
We plan to site the youth orchestra and summer camp in a different European country each year over a three to five year cycle. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to tour the Youth orchestra/summer camp in this way?
La banda Europa is committed to increasing the number of people participating in and enjoying music in Europe and are developing developing a youth music education programme. We have educators on the team from all over Europe…. within La Banda, there are two music professors, the Head of a degree course in English folk music, the Head of the Scottish piping degree course in Glasgow, three university tutors, five members who teach at secondary school level and several workshop leaders with community education experience.
We are developing a workshop program that explores and compares indigenous European instruments and musical culture. The programme will offer workshops and master-classes on individual instruments including playing techniques and history.
(have a look at this quote from one of our board members)
Citizenship
“A key challenge for the European Union is to develop a common sense of a common citizenship which is enriched by cultural difference. Music – making it, performing it, listening to it – is potentially a unique way of constructing such an inclusive yet diverse civic identity. There is much talk about education for citizenship in the new Europe. Learning citizenship by making music could have a distinctive contribution to make to this process. In this sense, citizenship is the outcome of creative activity rather than the starting point for educational practice.” Ian Martin, Reader in Adult and Community Education, University of Edinburgh
I just arrived in Edinburgh from Inverness, last night with my car on the back of a recovery vehicle in the pissing rain. I was was immediately cheered up to find that we have had 42 views of the blog on our first day online!
I’m delighted to tell you that one or two members of the band want to contribute to this blog. So far you can expect to hear from Pascal lefuevre (France), Dick Lee (Scotland), Paco Blasco (Spain), Rory Campbell (Scotland) and Eric Rydvall(Sweden), Anne-Lise Foy (France). People will write in their own languages as well as English.
I know that other band members will also want to contribute. Expect to see regional European recipes and wine recommendations as well as music talk.
Music is an obsessive compulsive disorder. At least that’s the way it seems to me especially where La Banda Europa is concerned.I started thinking about creating a pan European orchestra when I was working on a movie called Festival by Annie Griffin. The music brief was to create the atmosphere of an international festival…Annie had been given a CD of a Semana Santa band from Seville and she had the idea that I should write a score to incorporate one. These Semana Santa bands are made up of Cornetas ( kind of single valve bugles dating back to the beginning of the 20th century) Fiscornos (flugel horns)and drums. Chris Young, the films producer, was keen to incorporate bagpipes into the score so it seemed obvious to me that I had to try to combine these two ideas. I wrote a score and we flew the Kirkliston Drambue pipe band over to Seville and recorded them along with the 80 piece Semana Santa band, La Banda Tres Caidas. It wasnt easy what with the language issues and the pipers love of whiskey but it was incredibly rewarding. The resulting combination set me off on the journey I am now on with La Banda Europa, currently a 35 piece pan European orchestra. Take a look at the ABOUT section for details of la Banda Europa.
In March 2006, I was awarded the ‘Creative Scotland Award for artists of distinction’. It is one of the richest arts awards to an individual in Europe. This allowed me time to begin research into available musicians and instruments and to write the music for this dream orchestra that could make the unique sound of Europe.
Before the Wolf
Working together with UZ Events, ideas were developed for a show BEFORE THE WOLF, incorporating such an orchestra. Over the winter of 2006-07, I started putting La Banda Europa together and writing the music. This was to be a large-scale, theatrically presented outdoor production.
As well as La Banda Europa we incorporated a thirty piece choir, a twenty piece drumming group and two boy sopranos from the Vienna Boys’ Choir into the production. The production itself was directed by Hilary Westlake (previously with Lumière and Son, and more recently Euro Disney).
Marseille residency
In December 2007 La Banda Europa was offered a week-long residency in Marseille, by Lieux Publics, France’s National creation centre for performances for public spaces. The residency involved rehearsals, master classes and conference.
This was a great opportunity to forge and reinforce strong bonds across national borders as well as nurturing and sustaining our developing cultural collaboration. The residency was such a success that it has become an objective of La Banda to organize residencies more often. The intention is to hold two or three residencies a year for small sub-groups of La Banda and one residency a year for the full band.
Celtic Connections
This concert at Celtic Connections, Glasgow in January 2008 included two new pieces especially commissioned for the event. The concert was fantastically well received by an audience of 1200 people who treated La Banda to a five minute standing ovation at the end. Both the Scotsman and the Herald five star reviews! BBC2’s Culture show invited La Banda onto its programme as a result of seeing the concert.
We are currently working on funding and sponsorship for future projects with lots of interesting ideas on the go. I’ll do my best to keep this blog going as well as opening it up to members of the band to make their own postings.
Watch this space!
Check out this youtube video of La banda europa in action
