Summer Festivals with Ragleela

This past August 10, I performed with Ragleela at the Festival des Traditions du Monde de Sherbrooke. I had played this festival a few years earlier with Galitcha, and so was really looking forward to being back. This was our first performance trying out a new instrument with the group -cello. Cellist Philippe Mius d'Entremont joined the usual group of Uwe Neumann on sitar, Jean-Marc Hébert on guitar, Eric Breton on percussion, and myself on tabla.

Soundchecking with Ragleela at the Festival des Traditions du Monde de Sherbrooke

In concert at the Festival des Traditions du Monde Sherbrooke

Here comes the rain!

But, after we played our first tune, BOOM, the rain came down HARD. We quickly packed up our instruments, but were told to stay on standby in case the weather cleared up. 20 minutes later, it did, and so we were able to resume our set for another 30 minutes or so. Then right after finishing, again, the rain came pouring down and this time there was no end in sight. We scrambled to pack our instruments and put them away in the car. We were all completely soaked, but luckily no instruments were damaged.

On August 13, we headed out to the Festival Interculturel de Rawdon. Unlike the weather in Sherbrooke earlier that week, the weather was really amazing. Nothing but sun and blue skies. The festival is set at the municipal beach, right next to a peaceful lake.

Uwe playing his sansa.

After the concert, we took a few group photos in the Rawdon countryside. Here are a couple of my favourites: