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Donostia-San Sebastian.  The Basque-Béarnaise group Xarnege will leave for Mexico at the end o f the month for a tour of five concerts in different cities in the country. Performances will start on October 30 in Taxco (Guerrero) with a concert at auditorium of the Foro Revolucion de la Universidad CEPE-UNAM.  The day after the group will play at the Casa del Lago in Chapultepec (Mexico City), while on November 1 they will be at the Sala Mango in Tepoztlan, in Morelos.  The tour will continue on November 2 with a concert in the Plaza Hidalgo in Coyoacan (Mexico City), the tour will end at the Festival Calaveras 2012 at the Isla del Rio, in Aguascalientes.

Xarnego is the word traditional word, used on both sides of the Pyrenees for children of Basque-Béarnaise couples, and it also applies to places where both cultures co-exist.  The group performs a fusion of both musical traditions and the philosophy of its name, claims to be a meeting place, a crossroads between the two cultures.

Mexico’s Baztango Eguna

Xarnege’s members include Joan Baudoin (traditional instruments like boha, caremera, zarrabee, glabuta, ttun ttun and percussion), Lucia Longue (xirula, besson, caremera, vocals, diatonic ccoridon and boha (bagpipes from the Landes), Simon Guillaumin (zarrabete, electroacustic, and vocals), Josean martin Zarko (guitar, bouzouki) and Juan Ezeiza (violin, alboka and bass).

This will be Xarnege’s third Mexican tour where they were in 2007 and 2008.  On both occasions the group played at the Baztango Eguna at Mexico City’s Euskal Etxea in the month of July.  The group has great memories of those festivals, especially the surprise of finding themselves in a festival with costumes, food and revelry of Baztan in the heart of Mexico.

Video of Xarnege’s performance at the 2008 Ollin Kan Festival in Mexico: