Barcelona Bluegrass Camp Archives

9th Annual Barcelona Bluegrass Camp report

This article was co-written by Xavier Cardús, one of the organizers of the camp. Photos are a contribution from Josep Ponsà.

On March 1-2, 2024, the Associacio Bluegrass i Old-Time Al Ras (Al Ras) hosted the 9th annual Barcelona Bluegrass Camp in Barcelona, Spain. We had more than a hundred musicians gather to enjoy two days playing bluegrass music, with participants from the USA, Ireland, Holland, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Switzerland, Portugal, and of course, Spain.

The Barcelona Bluegrass Camp has been held the first weekend in March for nine years.

Friday, March 1st: The Barcelona Bluegrass Camp begins with the Big Jam, giving musicians the opportunity to know one another in a social and relaxed setting. Students, teachers, and kids gather around in jam circles, and play their favorite songs.

After the Big Jam there was the Teacher’s Concert, and we had a number of excellent bluegrass musicians gathered to teach this year, including the renowned bluegrass guitar instructor Steve Kaufman, and banjo instructor Bill Evans. Both instructors have decades of experience in teaching and countless instructional material available. Teachers, organizers, and invited guests performed a great show to the gathered musicians. Organizer Joan Manel, from the Al Ras Association, kept putting out additional chairs all night to keep the growing crowd comfortable.

After the concert there was another jam for socializing with old friends coming together again for musical fellowship.

Saturday, March 2nd: Everyone gathered at 9:30 in the morning to find out where their classrooms were, where their combo will be meeting, chat with fellow students about bluegrass, and maybe grab a coffee or sandwich at the café of La Sedeta, the building where the camp takes place.

The teachers this year were Steve Kaufman, guitar; Bill Evans, banjo; Raphael Maillet, bluegrass fiddle; Mitch Depew, old-time fiddle; Ondra Kozak, mandolin; David Prat, old-time banjo; Maribel Rivero, bluegrass kids; Oriol Saña, Paul Vlodroop, and Juan Manuel Hernández, combo teachers.

One coffee break, a lunch break, the campus family photo, and a lot more jamming later, and the instrumental instruction part of the camp was over at 5:30. Students then rehearsed with their combos, led by teachers and invited guests, and presented their material in a student’s concert at 7:00 in the evening.

The combo segment of the camp underlines the importance of gaining experience by playing bluegrass music together, demonstrating how cultivating better musicianship is not just an individual process, but also one of learning to sensitively play music with other instruments. The student’s concert was more packed than the teacher’s concert, and the Al Ras organizers rapidly sold raffle tickets for a year’s subscription to the ArtistWorks online teaching program while the students combos played (Congratulations to the two raffle winners, fiddler Pablo Luchtan and guitarist Pol Gillén).

We like to call special attention to Bluegrass Kids, a program spearheaded by bassist Maribel Rivero. In association with l’Escola de Música de Premiá de Mar, the kids program has increased under Maribel’s direction. This year, she worked with 19 kids under 10 years old to get them prepared for the students concert. Great job kids, and great work Maribel — thanks for everything you put into Bluegrass Kids!

Before everyone headed back to the bar for more jamming, students, teachers, and guests were invited onstage to join in a performance of two camp songs: Salty Dog and Elzic’s Farewell (the Chris Thile version).

The evening, and the camp, ended with the teachers, students, and organizers at the café downstairs, reminiscing, making plans, and playing music together.

The Al Ras Association organizers: Lluís Gómez, Joan Manel Hernández, Jorge Rodríguez, Xavier Cardús, and Ignasi Cardús
Artistworks for donating two year-long subscriptions for the raffle
El Barn D’en Greg who provided a BBQ and Jam Sunday afternoon for the travels still in town
Everyone at La Sedeta and the Café for putting up with the overflow of musicians for two days

La Sedeta building, an old silk stocking factory converted to a community center, has been the perfect venue for the “camp,” because it has enough classrooms, a nice big auditorium with a performance stage, good sound, and plenty of seating. Just as important, there is also a friendly café on the bottom floor where musicians can go at their own calling to grab a coffee, beer, or a bocadilla (a type of sandwich).

The 9th Barcelona Bluegrass Camp was a great success, and we can’t wait to see everyone again next year, and of course some new faces!

Report from the 2023 Barcelona Bluegrass Camp

This report from the 2023 Barcelona Bluegrass Camp, held in Spain, is a contribution from Michael Luchtan, and American living in the region.

Hello Bluegrass friends!

We celebrated our 8th annual Barcelona Bluegrass Camp (BBC) this year, March 3-4. It was a great success, with our biggest attendance ever, including musicians from around Spain, the USA, Holland, Switzerland, Israel, Portugal, Germany, and many more.

Over the years, the BBC has become a place where connections are made and friendships are deepened. This happens not only with members of the community, and the folks who make bonds during the jams, but also between the teachers, and the musicians who formed a band to perform several shows over the course of a week, enough so that they got a good feeling for each other.

Let me tell you, by the show on Sunday afternoon, after the camp had ended, and the John Reischman Catalan Quartet had performed together in multiple rehearsals, casual jams, and stage performance (with several shared meals in between), they were tight as could be, with the confident Lluís Gómez laying in easy in the background on banjo. Talented bassist Maribel Rivero did the same – except when he stepped towards the mic to take a killer solo that crossed the well-known version of a song with his inner artistry – in order to give the visiting artists front and center stage. And Grammy award winner John Reischman on mandolin, IBMA Momentum Award winner (and Grammy nominated) Chris Luquette on guitar, and French All-Star fiddler Raphaël Maillet. Maillet’s playful stage presence made him an easy duet for well known Barcelona violinists Carol Duran and Oriol Saña, who joined him for twin and triple fiddles.

Reischman taught an eager group of mandolinists who came from around Europe and, like the other instructors, coached a student band that performed at the Student Concert on Saturday night. Luquette taught bluegrass guitar, Raphaël taught fiddle, Maribel taught the kids, and Lluís Gómez taught banjo.

And then there was the old-time side of the camp, with fiddling Mitch Depew, who is emerging as a driving pulse in the old time music as second place award winner at last years Clifftop fiddle contest. Mitch taught a growing group of violinists that he has drawn to the camp during his visits to Barcelona. Jelle Snelders taught clawhammer banjo using Prat banjos, made here in Barcelona.

Whether we were playing bluegrass or old time, it was such a pleasure to jam with everyone and enjoy musical fellowship with old friends.

Thank you to all the teachers, the students involved, and to the people who helped make it happen. Special mention to ArtistWorks who donated two subscriptions to their innovative online classes that allow you to get direct feedback from top-tier bluegrass artists, and to La Sedeta retiring Director, Esperanza Alvarez, who has provided a welcoming place for the Al Ras organizers to create an effervescent camp of musicians jamming in every room, hallway, and out in the grounds.

Special thanks also to the organizers, who each did their part to help make a successful bluegrass camp in a former silk stocking factory cum civic center in the urban grid of Barcelona’s legendary Eixample: Ignasí and Xavier Cardús, Lluís Gómez, Joan Manel Hernàndez, Michael Luchtan, and Jorge Rodríguez.

We also want to thank the organizations that produced shows around the camp to support the visiting artists:

The folk festival Tradicionàrius for including John Reischman and his local quartet as a part of their festival. The group performed to a packed audience at the Centre Artisà Tradicionàrius as part of the festival, now in its 36th year.

El Barn D’en Greg once again provided a concert hall for a Sunday performance, a Bluegrass Barbeque and Jam, inside his legendary country dance hall.

Bluegrass is alive and growing in the Mediterranean region of Spain!

Barcelona Bluegrass Camp 2022 report

Thanks to the organizers of the Barcelona Bluegrass Camp for sharing this report (with photos) of their 2022 event, held earlier this month in the Catalan region of Spain. It should be encouraging to bluegrass lovers everywhere to see the continued growth of the music outside of the land where it was born. The report was written by Michael Luchtan and Xavier Cardus.

Hello bluegrass family and friends,

We are happy to send an update on the successful return of the Barcelona Bluegrass Camp: on March 4th and 5th, we celebrated the 7th Barcelona Bluegrass Camp. The camp provided the meeting place for more than 80 people coming from different countries (Spain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, and the UK). This event is the most important Bluegrass Camp done in Spain.

The Camp took place at the La Sedeta Building, an old textile factory located in the Eixample district of Barcelona with a concert hall and several classrooms to do the musical teaching.

Two years ago, at the fifth Barcelona Bluegrass Camp, held the first weekend of March 2020, we had no idea of the massive changes that would come crashing into our community just a few days later. The sudden and extended succession of activities was hard on ourselves and our community. Luckily we didn’t lose any of our musical community to COVID, although we lost parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, and friends.

It’s a testament to the power of music, and the enduring bonds that it fosters to create community, that we were able to persevere, without the driving impulse and energy that comes from playing music together. Yes, there were internal struggles, hopelessness, lethargy, pessimism, but we have made it through to the other end, still dedicated to preserving the culture of bluegrass, the knowledge, expertise, exposure, connections, and community that we have fostered for over twenty years.

We made it back to our home base of La Sedeta, thanks to Esperanza Álvarez (Director of La Sedeta), and her willingness to put up with our group of musicians playing music together in every possible crevice), but things were different. We still had the big opening night jam on Friday in the bar, but the bar hasn’t been open in two years! It was definately the most sober Barcelona Bluegrass Camp we have ever had, as there was not a readily available supply of beers just downstairs.

The Camp started on Friday, March 4, with more than 30 people playing together in the opening Big Jam.

After the jam we had the teacher’s concert. Usually, we like to bring in an instructor from outside our community to share their expertise, for example Tony Trischka at the last camp before the pandemic. But with the uncertainty of planning we faced, we were only able to get two outside instructors to join our ranks, and our local experts came forward to be Camp instructors. The instructors took the stage and played classic bluegrass tunes. The auditorium was full and everyone really enjoyed listening to bluegrass and old-time music.

Our instructors were:

Eugene O’Brien and Lluis Gómez – Bluegrass Banjo
Paul Van Vlodroop – Mandolin
Oriol Saña – Bluegrass Fiddle
Mich Depew – Old-Time Fiddle
David Prat – Old-Time Banjo
Gnaposs – Flatpicking Guitar
Joan Pau Cumellas – Harmonica
Maribel Rivero – Kids Bluegrass Ensemble

Campers are familiar with what to expect at this point. We have the opening jam and teachers conference on Friday night, instrument classes on Saturday morning, take an extended break for a family lunch, camp photo, and to jam, followed by rehearsing with combos, and finally the student concert on Saturday, when we announce the winner of our raffle for a year’s membership to ArtistWorks.

The student concert was a big success. We had more than eight combos of varying levels, coached by the instructors and Al Ras organizers. The Kids Bluegrass Ensemble, composed of guitars, banjos, and fiddle played by kids from 9-14 years old, headed by all-star instructor Maribel Rivero was a great success.

After the Kids, everyone got a chance to be on stage as the combos, one after another, presented the songs they had prepared together.

At the end of the concert, all the participants got up on stage to play the Camp Song. It was impressive: a lot of banjos, guitars, mandolins, fiddles, harmonicas, etc. all playing together.

The raffle (a year of free learning from ArtistWorks) went to two slow-jammers, so we look forward to seeing how they progress over the next year!

The 7th Barcelona Bluegrass Camp was a big bluegrass party, and everyone who attended took home a great memory. Thanks to everyone who came and participated, and we hope to see you again next year! The 8th Barcelona Bluegrass Camp will be March 3 and 4, 2023, and we have already confirmed some amazing instructors.

The list is too long, but we want to thank the teachers, the organizers, the photographers, our sound engineer, the sponsors, and everyone at La Sedeta:

Organizers: Lluís Gómez, Jorge Rodríguez, Joan Manel Hernández, Michael Luchtan, Xavier Cardús and Ignasi Cardús

Photographers: Josep Cequiel and Josep Ponsá

Sound engineer: Albert Guitart

Sponsors: Ajuntament de Barcelona, Al Ras Associació, Shubb capos, ArtistWorks, Northfield, and Cuerdas Gato Negro

Barcelona Bluegrass Camp offers free workshops this weekend

Our friends at the Barcelona Bluegrass Camp in Spain are taking a different tack this year, owing to the local COVID restrictions remaining in place.

Since they can’t host everyone together in person this year, they will be offering their two days of instrumental bluegrass workshops for free online. Instead of charging admission, the organizers will be conducting a raffle for some very valuable prizes for students of the music, with chances offered at only €5 each.

Workshop sessions will be held on Friday evening, March 5, and during the day on Saturday. They will be held during a convenient local time in eastern Spain, but as they will be shared on both Facebook and YouTube, interested participants in other parts of Europe, plus the US and other countries, can either watch them live, or wit and watch when it suits them wherever they live.

Camp organizer Lluis Gomez shared some of his thoughts about having to go online this year.

“I remember just a year ago, I was living a dream, the fifth Barcelona Bluegrass Camp, and what an anniversary. Tony Trischka, my hero, around 40 banjo students who signed up from everywhere, and during two days, one hundred students and teachers, teaching, learning, and playing.

While we were working on the arrangements we heard about the COVID in China and Italy, but I was so immersed in the Camp, that I thought, not here…well, the rest is history.

It’s been a year now, time flies and a few months ago, within Al Ras, the association organizing the Camp, we discussed what to do. I have to mention that COVID affects us, personally, our families, work, etc, so we don’t have so much energy. But, as Martino Coppo posted on Facebook talking about the Camp, ‘I believe we need some light and beauty to help us through these dark and troubled times, and music can be such a wonderful guide and healing medicine.” I completely agree.

We decided to organize an online edition to give us and the bluegrass world some energy and hope.

So, let’s break out the champagne, because this Friday, March 5, the 6th edition of the Barcelona Bluegrass Camp kicks off!

Four workshops will be taught, Raphael Maillet from France on violin, Richard Cifersky from Slovakia on banjo, Martino Coppo from Italy on mandolin, and Chris Luquette from USA on guitar, this last workshop dedicated to Tony Rice, who passed away on December 25th.

The sessions will be streamed live on the BBC Facebook page and the Al Ras YouTube channel on the following schedule.

Fiddle Workshop with Raphael Maillet – March 5th, 6:30 p.m. (GMT+1) YouTube Facebook
Banjo workshop with Richard Cifersky – March 6th, 11:30 a.m. (GMT+1) YouTube Facebook
Mandolin Workshop with Martino Coppo – March 6th, 5:00 p.m. (GMT+1) YouTube Facebook
Guitar workshop with Chris Luquette – March 6th, 7:00 p.m. (GMT+1) YouTube Facebook

For time comparison, 6:30 p.m. Barcelona time is 12:30 p.m. in US eastern time.

The Barcelona Bluegrass Camp raffle will offer three prizes in the drawing:

First prize – Annual subscription to the ArtistWorks educational platform ($279 value)
Second prize – VS-3CAP transducer microphone from VS Audio Systems ($95 value)
Third prize – VS-3CAP transducer microphone from VS Audio Systems ($95 value)

To purchase raffle tickets, use the Al Ras Festival PayPal link.

For any other questions about BBC, you can post your query online.

2020 Barcelona Bluegrass Camp report

Tony Trischka leads a banjo workshop at the 2020 Barcelona Bluegrass Camp

This report on the 5th annual Barcelona Bluegrass Camp is a contribution from Xavier Cardús, a banjo player and bluegrass enthusiast in Barcelona.

The temperature was pleasantly perfect and the clear sky was pale blue this past March 6th and 7th for the fifth annual Barcelona Bluegrass Camp, held in sunny Barcelona, Spain. We had more than 120 participants (and more than 40 banjos!), including students from the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Andorra, Holland, Belgium, Greece, and Spain.

The Camp began on Friday night with a great big jam and the Teachers Concert, attended by participants with their family and friends. Grammy-nominated artist Tony Trischka and French fiddler Rapaël Maillet opened the concert with an energizing duet. Afterwards, all the teachers took the stage, playing and improvising classic bluegrass songs. Of course, once the concert was over, the jams resumed in the bar and spilt onto the street. All Camp activities were carried out in La Sedeta, the historic building that housed an old factory of woolen fabrics, artificial silk, and synthetic fibers. This factory had an important role in the labor movements of the early 20th century. Today this building has been repurposed as a civic center and is part of the industrial heritage of Barcelona.

Camp continued in earnest first thing Saturday morning with the presentation of the teachers and Camp organizers. The students were then dismissed and followed their teacher to a classroom to work on this year’s Bluegrass Camp songs (My Walking Shoes and Red Prairie Dawn).

For this year, we had the following classes and instructors:

Bluegrass Banjo: Tony Trischka, Eugene O’Brian, and Lluís Gómez
Old Time Banjo: David Prat
Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar: Phil Fernback
Finger-picking Bluegrass Guitar: Miguel Talavera
Mandolin: Paul Van Vlodrop
Bluegrass Fiddle: Raphaël Maillet
Old Time Fiddle: Mitch Depew
Vocal Harmony: Sharon Lombardi and Jean Marie Redon
Double Bass: Josemi Moraleda
Harmonica: John Pau Cumellas

In addition, the camp also included the Bluegrass Kids Workshop, taught by Maribel Rivero, for introducing bluegrass music to kids age 6-11.

The presence of Tony Trischka at the Camp was quite meaningful for the banjo students this year. Banjo students from throughout Europe were eager to have the opportunity to work with him directly, to see him play first-hand, and to hear his expert advice.

Students worked with their instrument instructors up until lunch time, when we all gathered at a local restaurant for a big meal and a group photo.

After lunch, students were placed in two different combos with two different teachers. The first combo came up with arrangements for the Camp songs. The second combo learned a song specific to the group to be performed at the student concert. For example Paul Van Vlodrop, the fiddle instructor from Netherlands, taught Salty Dawg to an enthusiast band consisting of two bluegrass banjos, one from the Spanish capital city of Madrid and one from California, a guitarist from Canada and one from Appalachia, a dentist playing old time banjo, and his uncle, a traditional Danish shipbuilder who plays harmonica, along with two fiddlers, one bassist, and a harmonica player from right here in Catalonia.

After a great time working up songs with our new bands, the musicians were summoned to the auditorium. First, the children who participated in the Bluegrass Kids Workshop appeared and played an easy Bluegrass song. It was wonderful to see the children playing with their small violins and banjos. Maribel did a great job organizing the kids, who were of various levels, giving them the opportunity to play onstage in a relaxed and familiar setting. Of course, the crowd loved it!.

Next up, the combos took the stage. One after another, they presented the song they had worked on earlier in the day. Students of all ages and levels worked together in musical fellowship, with lots of great instrumental and vocal numbers. After the last band played, the organizers came on stage and drew two raffle tickets from a bag. The prize was a free ArtistWorks membership for a year (a $279.00 value). The lucky winners were Santiago Gundín (a banjoist from Madrid) and Joana Gumí (a fiddle player from Barcelona).

Finally, all the teachers and students were invited to take the stage to play a song together, with the Bluegrass Kids in the front row, and Lluís Gómez directing the whole operation. Naturally, there was not enough room onstage for 120 people, and musicians stood on the side of the stage. Together, everyone — banjos, guitar, fiddle, bass, harmonicas, and the singers —- played Red Prairie Dawn and My Walking Shoes, the Bluegrass Camp songs. Once the audience started applauding, they did not stop for some time! And all the participants started applauding too. It was like a big Bluegrass Fiesta. Everybody was happy. The Fifth Barcelona Bluegrass Camp was over. And all the participants took home a wonderful memory.

The teachers were surprised by the student’s strong desire to learn and to play, and everyone agreed that the best part of the camp was the atmosphere of collaboration and friendship amongst musicians that was created. Many participants said they plan on returning next year to the Barcelona Bluegrass Camp.

The Sixth Barcelona Bluegrass Camp will be on March 5th and 6th, 2021, and we hope you can join us!.