Bitan Music Festival photos
The Bitan Music Festival was a series of free concerts held on the bank of the Xindian River in Bitan. The festival began on 10 January with performances every weekend. I only attended a few days of musical performances, but I saw some fantastic performances.
Yerboli Ahmethan (葉爾波利) is a Kazakh musician from Xinjiang, China. He plays a two-stringed instrument called a dombra. David Chen wrote a great article about Yerboli in the Taipei Times. He played on 7 & 8 March.
Dana Wylie Band, with Dana and Jez, supported Yerboli on 7 March.
On 15 March I caught the final set of Thai band Blue Sky featuring MJ Klein on guitar. They will be playing a show for the Thai New Year (Songkran) at the Taoyuan Stadium on 12 April.
David Chen & the Muddy Basin Ramblers played the finale of the festival on Sunday 29 March. Although it was a rainy afternoon quite a crowd gathered to hear them play. The band are no strangers to Bitan as they sometimes use the riverside as a rehearsal venue. They played a lively set that extended over two hours.
*More photos in the Bitan Music Festival set at flickr.
Links 5 November 2007
Changes in Bitan
Interesting weather
Taipei then and now
It’s raining again…
Posted: March 29th, 2009 under Photos, Taipei County, Taiwan.
Tags: music, xindian
Comments
Comment from cfimages
Time 30 March 2009 at 8:43 am
Good to see you braved the rain on Sunday to see MBR. We spent it apartment hunting.
Comment from roentarre
Time 30 March 2009 at 8:03 pm
I have missed that festival. I wished I were there. My tombsweeping exercise was rather meeble and miserable.
Glad to see someone that interesting from north west China. The music must be so unique
Comment from MJ Klein
Time 30 March 2009 at 12:16 am
i’ve been sick for the past 2 days – i wanted to make it on the last day for the Ramblers…. glad you got to see them.