No.19: 3-5 July 2009

The festival 2009 was the first year without Bombi. After ten years as a guiding spirit to the children of the festival, Bombástico Karawanserai had to move on. New set, new staff, new luck: Jens Daniel, with fresh forces, was searching for a new face for the festival, and though not everything went smoothly, there were no fears about the quality or creativity of the Children’s festival.

Perhaps the best contribution to this years Country in Focus Russia met the crowd on Friday and Saturday evening in the market square, as Mr Pejo's Wandering Dolls Puppet Theatre enchanted the audience. Schiller was a festival theme, Rudolstadt finally advertised with the slogan "Schiller's secret lover" as the poet would have been 250 this year. The Regional focus was finally buried with the 2009 edition to Baden-Württemberg and for the first time the “Magic Concert” took place (for the Short-necked lute) and was part of the annual TFF CD / DVD package, which is published in early December Also available on CD was the concert of Deitsch in the National Theatre (Heideck HD20093). The Ruth Award went to Hans Söllner, Aly Keita, Brave Old World and Günter Gretz. The Dance theme was ‘Men’, which was great for those wishing to show-off their strength and skill.

Among the concert highlights included Magnifico, Habanot Nechama, LaBrassBanda, Valravn and musicians from Korea, which gave an insight into the very strange, often severe, but always fascinating world sound of the peninsula.

The world citizen Goethe would have surely loved it. (Festival visitor)

To all non-believers I can only repeat again and again that even three days can still rock without any metal ...! (Metal District)