Which festival has the worst mosquitoes?

Which festival has the worst mosquitoes?

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norman lebrecht

July 13, 2018

The Boston Symphony Orchestra has posted this warning about Tanglewood:

I hear Kuhmo in Finland is pretty bad.

Where should we send the swat team?

 

Credit: Curnow/NPR

Comments

  • Angela says:

    Bregenz – you’re sitting directly at the water. I nearly got killed…

  • Justin Page says:

    Camp Encore/Coda in Sweden, Maine.

  • The View from America says:

    Meadowbrook, the summer home of the Detroit Symphony, can get pretty unpleasant just after the sun goes down — and it isn’t the kind of “buzz” the orchestra would be hoping to generate.

    It’s a reason never to program an evening of Mahler or Bruckner there.

  • Anne Cowper says:

    Puccini festival at Torre del Lago – by a lake, at dusk, in high summer. Welcome to your dinner, mozzies!

  • Doug says:

    So that’s why the oboist gets paid $70k more.

  • brian says:

    Tip from a golfer: dryer sheets. Yes, those white things in a box that you toss in the dryer with your wet laundry. Take a couple out, wipe yourself lightly with one of them, wherever the buggies might get you. If you’re wearing a hat you can pin or tie a sheet or two to that.

    Much neater and less sticky than Off! and the other sprays.

    • Doug says:

      Let’s see….it *might* work for bass players, cellists, percussionists, and keyboard players. That’s about it, genius.

      • Robert Holmén says:

        “It’ll never work!” History tells us the person who rushes to chime in with that is always the genius, right?.

        I can see clarinets, horns, trumpets, tubas… devising slightly larger enclosures that would contain them and their instrument. And there’s no reason the simple head gear can’t work for violins and violas.

        I was actually proposing it for the audience members, but for an orchestra that frequently finds itself in such a venue, a net over the whole seating area would not be impractical.

  • Adrian Brett says:

    Many years ago when I was in the Royal Shakespeare Company Wind Band at Stratford-upon-Avon I heard this tale of the internationally famous oboist, Alec Whittaker ( Toscanini’s favourite player) who had retired from the Halle, BBCSO and Philharmonia Orchestras and married the RSC wardrobe mistress. Brian Priestman, the MD, had decided it would be good to perform a Mozart serenade “en bateau” on the Avon. After the performance Brian congratulated Alec on the beautiful adagio solo but remarked he had never seen his face so red. Typically Alec retorted: “Eh lad, bloody mozzie flew in as I took t’ breath. Bugger was flying around inside me gob although t’solo.”

  • Sue says:

    Mosquitoes carry serious diseases. These tiny insects have been responsible for more deaths in human history than wars. Worth remembering. And it’s only female mosquitoes which bite. Can we exploit some gender differences with this one?

  • Jean says:

    Le Mas des Aulnes, in french Camargue (Rhône delta)

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