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The Worlds of Music Festival in Buffalo, Wyoming will pay tribute this year to the Basque community and its music thanks to the group, Ospa that includes trikitilari David Romtvedt who also plays for the local Basque dance group.  The festival begins tomorrow with a program that includes concerts, workshops and other activities.  All proceeds will go to the NABO Festival that will take place in Buffalo in July, 2017. 

Buffalo, WY.  The Worlds of Music Festival in Wyoming will delve into Basque music beginning tomorrow, as a tribute to the Basque immigrants and their contributions to the culture of the state.  The festival has invited the group Ospa, led by David Romtvedt, and plays traditional Basque music.  

Romtvedt isn’t Basque, but he is completely integrated in the local Basque community.  He speaks Basque and plays the trikitixa accompanying Basque dance groups in the area.

The festival begins tomorrow with a concert by Ospa and a talk about the music of the Basque immigrants who settled in Wyoming.  It will take place at the Buffalo Senior Center beginning at 12:45pm.

On Friday, the group will play at a dinner at the American Legion Hall in Buffalo beginning at 6pm.  It will be a Basque dinner, prepared with the collaboration of the Big Horn Basque club and whose proceeds will go towards the NABO Festival that will be held July 21-24, 2017 in Buffalo.

On Saturday, the group will teach a workshop on Basque music and instruments at the Bomber Mountain Civic Center beginning at 10:30am.  The workshop is open to the public and to anyone wishing to get to know more about, or play traditional Basque instruments like the alboka, trikitixa and pandero, along with others like the viola, saxophone, piano and percussion.  Basque songs will be sung, and so singers are also encouraged to attend.

The festival will conclude with a dance at the Cowboy Carousel Center to the music of Ospa beginning at 8pm.

Here we see Romtvedt and his daughter Caitlin performing at this summer’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC.