Spanish melodies echo through Domusdela on Saturday, where fifteen Tuna groups are performing their songs in honor of the Tuna Festival. In addition to the traditional student groups, many “cuarentuna”, which are made up of older members, are present this year. It goes to show that age doesn’t matter: You’re Tuna for life.

That is how the founders of Tuna Ciudad de Luz see it as well. They still meet up every month and recently performed in Murcia. This Saturday, they will be back on stage again, along with members from younger generations. The fact that young and old members connect through music is what makes the association so special, says chair Arthur Sliwinski. “Whether you’re twenty or over seventy: the friendships are just as strong.”

Brotherhood

This is why the association’s current members feel it is extra important to preserve and continue Tuna’s traditions, which they’ve successfully done for sixty years now. It’s a legacy that Ton Smits, one of the original members, is very proud of. According to him, little has changed over the past sixty years. Although students are under greater pressure now than in the past, making music together allows the tunos to break free from that. Fun and brotherhood are still at the heart of it all.

Tuna Ciudad de Luz was the first Tuna group to be formed outside the traditional Tuna countries, but in the eyes of Benigno Amor Barreiro, director of a Tuna museum in Santiago de Compostela, they are fully part of the Tuna community. “It might seem strange to ordinary Spaniards, but we’ve known Tuna Ciudad de Luz since the Stone Age. There is a sense of brotherhood and we feel very much at home here in Eindhoven.” This becomes evident when he takes the stage with his group Tuna de ICAI from Madrid and surprises the audience with a performance – in Dutch – of “Het leven is goed in het Brabantse land” (seen at the end of the video).