La Tomatina was composed in 1996 in Buñol, Spain while I was researching Spanish band music. Buñol is a small town of about 9,000 inhabitants about 19 miles (30 kilometers) from Spain’s 3rd largest city, Valencia. For 364 days of the year, it is a typical small town, but on the last Wednesday of August it becomes an international attraction. On that day the La Tomatina festival is held. Several trucks drop as many as 145,000 kilograms of tomatoes unto the main street and for an hour at 12:00 noon there are up to 100,000 people taking part in throwing tomatoes at each other. At 1:00 everybody goes to the specialpublic showers to wash up. A fire truck comes down the street washing down the buildings and the main street and by about 2:00 all is returned to normal and all references to the tomato fight are gone. Thetradition has been going on since 1945. I was in the streets taking part in throwing tomatoes for three years. After that when I was in Spain during the festival I watched it on TV.
Buñol also has a rich tradition of having two very good concert bands – the Litros and the Feos. Most of the 9,000 inhabitants formally belong to one of the two social clubs. There are several band competitionsheld in Spain and both of these bands take part. The band competition is fierce as bragging rights are won by the winning society. It is thought that this fierce competition is what helps develop excellentmusicians in that many young people become professional musicians and play in many orchestras and bands throughout the country.
La Tomatina was premiered by the U. S. Army Band Pershing’s Own on the U. S. Capital steps in June 1996, the composer conducting. La Tomatina is the second movement of SinfonÃa de Valencia, a three- movement composition that was premiered in Buñol by the band of Centro Instructivo Musical El Litro Buñol, conducted by Francisco Tamarit in August 1997. SinfonÃa de Valencia is recorded by the band of Centro Instructivo Musical El Litro Buñol, conducted by Fernando Bonete Piqueras on Mark Records (CD3816). La Tomatina is also on Youtube with video of the festival at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbpZU7vK3PQ.
La Tomatina was a winning composition in 1996, awarded a grant by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. It also won the IBLA Grand Prize in Sicily, Italy in 1998 and was a Semi Finalist as part of the American Prize Composition Competition – Band Division in 1996.
This arrangement of La Tomatina was prepared especially for conductor Natalia Montañés in 2004. In thisarrangement there are four percussionists instead of the original five.
La Tomatina has been very popular among bands around the world, performed over one hundred times.
