Dick reports...

Poljanci Choir from the Burgenland

The Poljanci Choir at the Danube Swabian Club

The Choir and the audience

It has been some time since I have seen the great hall at the Donauschwaben Club that crowded. Toronto’s Burgenländer Club and the Danube Swabians had pooled their resources – the club providing the venue and the Burgenländer the guests and entertainment. John Brunner and the Burgenländer Board had arranged to have the Croatian Folklore Group ‘Poljanci’ entertain at the Donauschwaben Club. Previous advertising had also prepared the members of the Donauschwaben Club of this event. It turned out that about 35–40% of the guests were club members, the rest were Burgenländer.

John Brunner welcomed the guests and introduced the VIPs plus Angelika Kornfeind, the choir’s manager who, as the rest of the 37 artists, also hailed from Wulkaprodersdorf, a small Village close to the Austrian border.

She later explained to me that the village has about 1800 inhabitants and that the group was founded in 1977. It has about 100 members of every age, musicians who play the “Tamburitza”- an instrument that looks like a small Guitar or Mandolin, dancers and singers.

The aim of the group has always been to promote the Bugenland-croatian language, customs, costumes, folk-dances and songs. It was a sight for sore eyes to see the group arrange themselves on the club’s stage.

Members of the choir in performance

It was really crowded, but the view of all those colourful costumes was miraculous. They entertained with Croatian folk-songs, hits, hymns and other renditions - mostly in Croat, of course; that not very many of the audience could understand. A lively folk-dance by three couples ended the first part of the event.

Dances, the audience

During the break we had many opportunities to talk to the guests and found a number of them disappointed that they only sang Croatian songs – what did they expect, Swahili? No, they wanted to hear German songs, not Croatian! Well, some of them left and did not wait for the second part of the event, I suppose it wasn’t their cup-of-tea.

As always

Dick Altermann