FEATURE Festival de Música
David Bishop-Rowe tells Simon Hope about an opportunity for international encouragement
From Camp Sarón to Cradley Heath
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S a result of a series of opportune conversations and God moments, an exciting event is taking shape, which will bring young musicians from across the Spain and Portugal Command to the small English town of Cradley Heath. Starting on Friday 10 May, delegates from throughout the Iberian Peninsula will cross the Cantabrian Sea to experience Salvation Army life in the West Midlands and explore some of its differences and similarities. The UK visit will also involve the young people in a range of experiences inside and outside the corps. ‘We now know the total number of people who are coming will be 20 from Spain and 5 from Portugal,’ says David, who initially organised the event. ‘They are coming from all over Spain and Portugal, so it is really exciting. We reckon about eight of them are going to play timbrels when they come across, and this will probably be the first time they will perform with a live band.’ The West Midlands Fellowship Band and massed songsters comprising members from other corps in the area will begin the weekend on Friday night with a Festival de Música – based on the old Cradley Heath tradition of Sounding Brass and Voices – featuring the young delegates, who will be received with the right degree of pomp. ‘We’ll be using the march “Celebration” as they come in,’ David enthuses, ‘with the old chorus: “We’ll keep the old flag flying,/ Flying round the world.” We already have small Spanish, Portuguese and British flags and we’re just about to make little Salvation Army flags. It’s been done a few times elsewhere, I know, so I’m not claiming any uniqueness, but we thought it would be a nice welcome.’ Tickets are available from the corps and any money raised will go to support the Spain and Portugal Command. 10
Salvationist 27 April 2019
The rest of the weekend will be less formal and will include the young people taking part in hymn tune playing outside a supermarket, a visit to a museum, witnessing with Cradley Heath Band during a church visit and supporting the corps in the Sunday meetings, concluding with an old-fashioned ‘wind-up’. The opportunity for this event came about when David stumbled across the only English-speaking corps in Spain while on holiday. David got to know the corps officers, and his background in conducting championship section brass bands led to an invitation for him to take part in the Spanish National Music
School during the summer. There he began talking with other leaders about the possibility of a Spanish delegation visiting England. ‘Camp Sarón is a permanent camp, just outside the city of Dénia, owned by The Salvation Army,’ explains David. ‘During the summer school, there was a timbrel group, there were bands and singing every morning, and we all joined in. As you’d expect at any music school there were down times with talent shows or something else going on. The officer commanding came along to the school and we started talking to him about a possible trip.’ Compared with many in the UK, corps
