Favorite place for street music
 

I think it's fantastic when you can stroll around a beautiful European city and be periodically entertained by talented musicians and singers. <BR> <BR>The pedestrian plazas of Munich had a marvelous variety of high-quality performers during our short visit this summer... chamber music by conservatory students; bluesy barrelhouse piano; plenty of singers with guitars. And I'll never forget listening to a young Asian woman singing an aria outside Mozart's birthplace in Salzburg. <BR> <BR>Any of you wish to share your thoughts and memories?

The whole of the Dordogne is enter <BR>tained by street musicians all summer and I find it enthralling. We have mariaci bands in Le Bugue, violin concertos in Sarlat, and jazz bands in Domme from June to September. <BR> <BR>When in Fougères this past June for two days, we stayed in the same hotel as a French jazz band that was doing street music in Brittany. I shared coffee and croissants with one of the players.one morning at breakfast. Later in the day I passed him and his colleagues playing "When the Saints Come Marching In" in the center of Fougères. He winked and nodded at me as if to acknowledge he really knew some American music. <BR>Generally speaking, though, in summer the streets of European cities are alive with musicians, mimes, and other street theater - I love it!

My very favorite for sheer incongruity has to be the indigenous Mexican drummers outside St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna this summer. They were out every evening in loincloths and feathers, under a big sign explaining in German and English, "We represent Mexican Indian Culture, NOT Austrian Culture," in case anyone should get confused. <BR> <BR>I'll never forget the young Italian man in a tuxedo singing the most beautiful "Figaro" on the Kartnerstrasse, the teenaged string quartet playing Brahms on the next block, and between them, an elderly Austrian man with a guitar, performing a semi-English, semi-German rendition of "House of the Rising Sun." <BR> <BR>I love Vienna!

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I should add, as a footnote, that my own kids were providers of street music in Europe this summer. If you read the post about "singing on the plane", it was about the return home from their boychoir' concert tour of Europe. The choir (boys 11 - 18 -- my sons are 11 and 15) ALWAYS sang in public squares or just on the sidewalk or in the airport whenever they were waiting around. Never failed to gather an appreciative audience (it helps that they sound wonderful!). When smaller groups of the boys went out exploring -- Salzburg, Vienna, Venice, Florence, Rome -- they sometimes put our a hat and sang... picked up some pretty good money!

Loved the talented musicians who strolled from restaurant to restaurant in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome. We ate dinner there several nights, and aside from an absolutely stunning 7-piece gypsy/jazz music combo, there was a fabulous solo guitarist who delighted us with Tu Vuo' Fa L'Americano from The Talented Mr. Ripley soundtrack after we provided a tip and he 'figured out' that we were Americans. Also loved Giovanni, an elderly man with a tin ear who sang acapella with tremendous gusto. He literally RAN back to our table from across the piazza after he remembered one more English song for us--"Love is a Many Splendored Thing". A 5,000 lire bill goes a long way for a night's entertainment.

Hi Bill, <BR>I know, I know!! It makes the day so much more memorable to hear lovely music.......on a few trips to England recently, I have gone to Covent Garden and was lucky enough to have been there on the lower floor when two women (first one, then the other) put a cassette in the player and sang along to the most beautiful music! Heavenly....I wish I could have listened to them sing all day.....

TTT

Chester in England. I remember hearing a chamber orchestra with half the players at street level and half on the Rows. Chester is quite close to Manchester which has Chetham's School and the Royal Northern College of Music. The students go to Chester to earn some cash by playing for the tourists.

I know it's not really Europe but almost. <BR>Montreal. <BR>

I'll second the Montreal nomination. It has the best street music of any city I've visited, and I've been to all the above except those in the Dordogne. In early July, it also is home to as good a music festival as you're likely to find.