A “bandella” is a type of traditional music band that is peculiar to the southern part of Switzerland. It is mainly constituted by wind instruments, and the music is played without score, in a sort of “choral improvisation” where one lead instrument usually plays a tune that is (should be) known by everybody, and the others follow with bass or accompaniment figures, secondary voices or counterpoints. The Bandella di Arogno, i.e., the bandella of my village, has a long and strong tradition. My grand-grandfather and my grand-uncle played in it, and I still feel a peculiar connection to this particular style of playing music: I love to play this style whenever the occasion arises. Therefore, in 2003 with some other bandella-enthousiastic students in Zurich we founded the Bandela Vegia. Aside from this group, I am glad to be able, every now and then, to join some of the “old masters” of Arogno: there is always an awful lot to learn!

The tunes

Basically, the repertoire consists of whatever one feels to play at that moment. Popular tunes, folk tunes, jazzy standards etc. But the core of the repertoire are the traditional old tunes, mostly marches, waltzes and polkas, that were perpetuated from one player to the other. Here are some (live) sample tunes to allow you to have a flavor of the music and the mood:

• La sciguéta
• Il valzer del Guido
• La marcia del Peppo

With the “Bandela vegia” we also like to take the old tunes and arrange them a bit - of course whitout losing the original spirit. For example take a hearing at

• Ul Füm in cà