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Hundreds of like-minded people will converge in downtown San Antonio this weekend, and if they’re louder than some tourists, it’s because they have something to sing about. And in fact, as David Nelson notes, the roots of this event can be traced all the way to Germany.
“A Sängerfest is basically a singing festival,” Nelson said. “In this case, we're doing a National Sängerfest. So we have choirs coming in from lots of different places.”
Choirs from all across the USA — and a couple of choirs from Germany—are convening downtown through Sunday.
“We’ve got about 640 people coming. 500 of those are singers,” he said. “It's a lot of fun for everybody that's there. The first concert will be on Friday.”
Once every three years they come together to sing at a national convention. That convention hasn’t been to San Antonio since 2010, so Nelson thinks it's high time.
“In Texas, we have two associations of singers. The first Sängerfest was, I believe, in the 1850s,” Nelson said. “The roots of the Sängerfest in Germany, each state has a Sängerfest, where the choirs that are residents in that state perform.”
As to this weekend, dozens of states will be represented by people who love to sing in choirs. Much of what goes on will be convention fare [for paying members] but there are two public concerts at the Lila Cockrell this weekend — on Friday and on Saturday, that are free and open to the public.
“Yeah, I've made lots of friends over the years, meeting people at these Sängerfests, so it's a lot of fun for everybody that's there,” he said.
This is the 65th year Sängerfest has been put on here in the United States.
Both of the public performances are at the Lila Cockrell Theater.
