Every July, visitors hear the txistu (the one-handed Basque flute played with a small drum, the ttun-ttun, in the free hand) threading through Pamplona’s signature San Fermín moments: the noon txupinazo, the morning dianas, the evening dances in Plaza del Castillo. Most descriptions of this sound treat it as generic folk atmosphere, the kind of anonymous regional color that could be swapped for any other town’s pipers without anyone noticing the difference. That description misses the actual arrangement entirely. The txistularis who play txistu at San Fermín belong to the Banda de Txistularis Municipal de Pamplona, a standing municipal body created by a specific act of the City Council in 1942, its members working under a direct, periodically renewed contract with the Ayuntamiento that spells out exactly what they owe the city during festival week.
That distinction matters because it explains why this particular tradition has survived intact for more than eight decades while so much ad hoc festival folklore fades or gets reinvented every generation. A civic contract with enumerated obligations does not depend on volunteer enthusiasm or a single charismatic bandleader; it is renewed by the council, staffed through formal selection, and answerable to the same institution that runs the encierro itself. Understanding the txistulari as a municipal position, not a costume, also explains a genuinely new story: in 2026, the band seated its first woman player in 84 years of existence.
This account draws on the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own institutional records for the band, contemporary reporting from Noticias de Navarra and the Basque outlet Naiz on the band’s 2026 appointment, and sanfermines.net’s documentation of the festival’s music program, cross-checked against each other wherever a claim carries real weight.
A Flute With an 800-Year Runway
The txistu’s documented name only goes back to 1864, but the instrument it names is the end point of a much older lineage. Upright three-hole flutes were common across the Iberian Peninsula and western Europe from the late Middle Ages onward, carried by traveling minstrels and adopted first by nobility and then by ordinary people. Early Spanish-language records did not even name the instrument directly; they named the player after the small drum he carried alongside it, calling him a tamborilero or tamboril, because the pipe-and-tabor pairing, one hand on the flute, one on the drum, was the defining feature.
From the Renaissance onward, the western Basque Country standardized the flute at roughly 42 centimeters, which produced the modern txistu, while a shorter cousin called the txirula remained standard further east, in Soule, Labourd, and Navarre. The 18th century brought a formal upgrade: the Count of Peñaflorida’s Basque Enlightenment cultural circle adopted the instrument, extended its range to two full octaves, added a larger polyphonic partner called the silbote, and required it to be tuned for the first time, since earlier pipe-and-tabor playing needed none. Urban players began forming schools to teach this more sophisticated version, while rural musicians kept building and playing simpler, self-made instruments alongside it. The oldest surviving txistu melodies sit in a Mixolydian mode in G, the same mode used in the seventh tone of Gregorian chant, and most modern compositions for the instrument stay in G major. In Spanish, the instrument is also sometimes spelled chistu, a spelling worth knowing since both forms turn up in older written sources. Exactly how three holes and no keys reach two full octaves, and how the instrument itself is built, is a separate story worth knowing on its own.
A dedicated advocacy body, the Association of Txistularies in the Basque Country, formed in 1927 to support players and the instrument’s teaching; its activity was interrupted during the Francoist period and picked back up afterward, and the association is still active today. The txistu is far from the only Basque instrument with a real, documented history behind the folk-music label. Encierro has also traced how the txalaparta became identified with Pamplona despite having no traditional roots in the city at all.
Who Actually Builds a Txistu
A txistu is not mass-produced the way a factory flute is. According to the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa’s own documentation of traditional Basque trades, commercial txistu manufacturing at the Keller workshop began in 1969, when José María Aldalur Larrañaga, born in Zarautz in 1933, set up the instrument’s production inside the company’s mechanical workshop with guidance from established players and instrument specialists Juan Ignacio Ansorena and Kepa de Miguel. Aldalur ran that section of the workshop until his son, Valentín Aldalur Múgica, born in Zarautz in 1964, took it over on his father’s retirement in 1989 and still oversaw it as of the Diputación’s most recent published account.
The materials are specific and unglamorous: ebonite for beginner-level instruments, and wood (soaked in hot oil for roughly two days before drying) for the instruments professional txistularis actually play. The workshop mechanizes the instrument’s metal components on-site using lathes, milling machines, and drills, while a separate carpentry workshop shapes the wooden body, a production process the Diputación notes does not differ substantially from that used by other established txistu makers, including the Gancedo family workshop in Amurrio, which still operates today as Gancedo Txistugileak. None of this craftsmanship shows up in the finished sound most festival visitors hear in Plaza del Castillo, but it is the reason a professional txistu costs real money and takes real training to play correctly, rather than functioning as a novelty souvenir whistle.
The Ayuntamiento’s Own Band
Pamplona’s txistulari band is not a folk troupe that happens to perform at civic events. It is the reverse: a civic institution that happens to play folk repertoire. The Banda de Txistularis Municipal de Pamplona, known in Basque as Iruñeko Txistulariak, was created by a formal agreement of the full Pamplona City Council on May 1, 1942, alongside a companion body, the Banda Municipal de Gaiteros. That founding agreement did not just authorize a performance group; it established a working relationship between the musicians and the municipality, with defined rights and obligations on both sides.
Roughly a decade later, in 1951, the young txistulari and gaitero bands were brought under the Patronato de la Banda de Música, the same governing board that had overseen the city’s separate civil wind ensemble, La Pamplonesa, since 1943. That shared arrangement lasted until December 24, 1986, when the City Council dissolved the joint Patronato and restructured how each of the three musical bodies related to the municipality; the new framework took effect through a 30-year agreement beginning in February 1987. The contractual relationship has needed periodic renewal ever since. Pamplona’s council approved an extension for the Gaiteros and Txistularis in March 2022, and a further extension carrying the arrangement through March 31, 2025 was confirmed by the Ayuntamiento’s own newsroom. The txistularis’ service obligations during San Fermín are specific and a matter of public municipal record: a guaranteed appearance at the txupinazo and a minimum of three pasacalles through the city, including performances tied to the festival’s Children’s Day and Seniors’ Day. That is a labor contract with a schedule attached, not a folkloric commitment.
What the Job Actually Looks Like During Fiesta Week
The txistularis’ festival calendar starts at the exact moment San Fermín does. When the town hall clock strikes noon on July 6 and the txupinazo rocket fires, the txistu players and La Pamplonesa jointly perform the Biribilketa by Gainza, the specific piece that formally opens the nine days. From there, the same musicians (grouped with gaiteros and other municipal bands) turn up in the early morning dianas, the roughly 6:45 AM wake-up marches through the Old Town that give residents fair warning before the day’s encierro. At midday, the txistu appears again in the Euskal Musika concert series at Media Luna park, sharing a 12:30 PM bill with the trikitixa (accordion) and improvised sung verse from bertsolaris.
The single biggest annual showcase for the instrument is the Alarde de Txistularis, generally staged the first Sunday of the festival and dedicated entirely to txistu repertoire. Its most recent edition reached its 67th consecutive year, bringing together roughly seventy musicians performing a mix of the classic txistu songbook and newly composed pieces, joined by singers from the Orfeón Pamplonés and dancers from Larratz Dantzari Taldea. In the evenings, the instrument returns at 9 PM in Plaza del Castillo for “Música de aquí,” where locals dance regional steps to txistu and gaita before the traditional Baile de la Era closes the night. None of this is improvised busking. Every one of these appearances sits inside the same festival program that schedules the encierro and the txupinazo, run by the same city government.
84 Years, One Woman
In May 2026, Ainhoa González became the first woman to join Iruñeko Txistulari Taldea in the band’s 84-year history. She was 28 at the time of her appointment, turning 29 during San Fermín itself, and had already spent roughly two decades playing txistu in giants’ processions, dance troupes, and kalejira street parades around the city before the band brought her in. Her appointment followed the retirement of longtime member Mintxo Garaikoetxea and expanded the ensemble from four players to five, the first time its size had changed in living memory.
In an interview published by the Basque outlet Naiz on July 5, 2026, González was direct about what her selection meant. Asked about becoming the band’s first woman, she said her choice reflected her technical command of the instrument and her “calle,” meaning her real, tested experience playing live in the street rather than in a rehearsal room. As she put it in the interview’s own headline:
“Mi elección demuestra la evolución en el mundo del txistu, pero casi más de la sociedad.”
(“My selection shows the evolution in the world of txistu, but almost more that of society itself.”)
That is a genuinely new chapter inside an institution old enough that most of its own members were born decades after its founding agreement was signed. It is also the clearest possible illustration of why the civic-employment framing matters: an 84-year gap in a formal municipal band’s membership is a real, documented, datable fact. An 84-year gap in “generic festival folk music” would not even be a sentence anyone could write.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a txistulari in San Fermín?
A txistulari is a professional player of the txistu, the Basque one-handed flute, and in Pamplona specifically the term refers to a member of the city’s own Banda de Txistularis Municipal, a group of paid musicians under direct contract with the Ayuntamiento rather than independent folk performers.
Are the txistu players at San Fermín paid by the city government?
Yes. Pamplona’s txistulari band was created by a City Council agreement in 1942 and its members work under a periodically renewed municipal contract, most recently extended through arrangements confirmed in 2022 and again through March 2025, which spells out specific performance obligations during festival week.
What is the Alarde de Txistularis?
The Alarde de Txistularis is Pamplona’s dedicated annual txistu concert, generally held the first Sunday of San Fermín, bringing together dozens of professional players (roughly seventy in its 2026, 67th edition) for a program mixing classic and newly composed txistu repertoire.
Is the txistu the same instrument as the gaita?
No. The txistu is a one-handed fipple flute played alongside a small hand drum, the ttun-ttun, while the gaita is a separate Basque bagpipe played by its own municipal band, the gaiteros. The two groups perform alongside each other constantly during San Fermín, including the morning dianas, but they are distinct instruments played by distinct municipal ensembles.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.