Cara boet met het ontbreken van Sandra Gunkel aan kwaliteit in. De groep heeft meerdere troeven, waaronder zeker de afwisselende vocalen van Gunkel met zangeres/violiste/accordeoniste Gudrun Walther, maar ook de arrangementen speciaal voor de uitzonderlijke combinatie van de houten dwarsfluit van Sandra en de Irish concert flute van haar echtgenoot Claus Steinort. Bodhran-speler Rolf Wagels (die vaker bij Cara aansluit) zal er wel bij zijn zaterdagavond in de N.P.B. Kerk in Oud Beijerland en zondagavond in 't Boerderijke in het Brabantse Haaren.
Cara komt nu in de volgende samenstelling: Claus Steinort op Irish concert flute, uillean pipes en concertina, Jürgen Treyz op gitaar, Rolf Wagels op bodhran en zangeres Gudrun Walther op viool, altviool en accordeon.
De ernst van Gunkels medische klachten is nog onduidelijk, maar dat het op een slecht moment komt is zeker. Cara is internationaal aan het doorbreken. Afgelopen jaar ging het al als een speer met o.m. een tournee door de VS. Op het Boston Irish Connections Festival wonnen ze tussen tal van Ierse topbands de publieksprijs. In het Arsenaal in Vlissingen werden opnamen gemaakt voor een live-dvd die op het punt van uitkomen staat.
Voor dit jaar staan er twee concertreeksen in de VS op het programma. Het Irish Music Magazine steekt in het nummer van deze maand de loftrompet over Cara. Hier een passage uit dat uitgebreide artikel:
...It's important to look at the musical background of the group which shows that, even though, they have not been exposed to Irish music from the cradle, and the fact that their grandmothers and grandfathers didn't rock them to sleep with Irish lullabies, they have still managed to attain such high standards by their dedication and love of Celtic music. Above all their music was greatly influenced by Planxty, The Bothy Band and by Altan, of course. Now and again Tola Custy, a fiddler from County Clare joins the band, indeed he made a guest appearance on their current CD, "In Between Times".
Is it not difficult for a German band to compete on a market that is littered with such talent from Ireland and Scotland? "We don't see ourselves as competitors" replies Gudrun. "We feel we are part of this scene and our musical colleagues from the Celtic shores have always accepted us as also belonging to this genre. They have embraced our style, our way of playing Celtic music. We have so much joy and fun when we meet at festivals, we exchange ideas and just have 'craic' together often ending in spontaneous sessions. That happened again recently in the United States", says Gudrun Walther.
"Anyway", she continues, "we probably all listen to the same CD's at home." Even though Cara doesn't need to hide their own talent they still have respect and admiration for the "greats" in the scene. Gudrun says: "When somebody like John Doyle or Paddy Keenan come up to us after the concert and say well done we certainly stand a little prouder."
All the band members also play with other groups or are involved in other musical projects. This diversity of interests has helped unintentionally to make Cara a band that is open to new impulses. The hard question is there to be asked of course, why are German folk musicians playing Irish folk music and not German folk music? It's an interesting topic that cannot be answered in just a few sentences but suffice to say that at least two of the band, Gudrun Walther and Jürgen Treyz, are also involved in the German folk scene.
In Germany they are a duo, known as Deitsch, who are out and about promoting the real traditional German folk music and not just the typical folk music normally associated with Germany...
Zie ook www.cara-music.com