Landesgartenschau & 60th Anniversary of the Bergmannsblasorchester
When a spa town flourishes and music helps to shape a shared history
2027 is a special year for Aue-Bad Schlema. The town is showing itself at its most vibrant: the Landesgartenschau (State Garden Show) is bringing colour, life and new encounters to the region. At the same time, the Bergmannsblasorchester Aue-Bad Schlema (Miners’ Brass Band) is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Two events that could hardly be more different, and yet they tell a shared story.
What links the two goes back a long way: the history of Wismut. In the very place where new green spaces are now being created and people come to relax and socialise, uranium mining once shaped life in the region. And it was in the midst of this era, in 1967, that the ‘Vereinigte Blasorchester Wismut Aue’ was founded – the roots of today’s Bergmannsblasorchester.
The former Wismut Orchestra was not only the musical accompaniment to the Wismut site, but became part of its history in its own right. After the end of the Wismut era, it developed into an independent association and remained closely linked to its mining tradition. It was from this history that the Europäisches Blasmusikfestival (European Brass Band Festival) eventually emerged: in 1992, the orchestra organised the first ‘Festival of Brass Music’. What began on a small scale back then is now an international festival that brings musicians from all over the world to the Europäisches Blasmusikfestival in Aue-Bad Schlema.
The Landesgartenschau is now bringing a new dimension to a city that has undergone constant change. A former mining town is being transformed into a place for recreation, socialising and culture. The Bergmannsblasorchester symbolises this development: it preserves the memory of the past whilst, through its music, shaping the city’s present and future.
60 years of the Bergmannsblasorchester, the Landesgartenschau and the European Brass Band Festival – three stories that are inextricably linked to Aue-Bad Schlema.
