Tuesday 9 August 2016

German Summer Sunshine

Two terrific nights in Germany... surrounded by lots of wonderful singers and artists!

We did these two particular gigs in the same way three years ago...& it was great to be back.

First to Fritzlar... in the North! (quite near Holland)
In the old town... in the open air...
We had a fabulous time; singing Beatles, Mills Brothers, Hi-Lo's, Manhattan Transfer, 16th century Pavane by Thoinot Arbeau & Adele; as well as instructions as to how to make Tea set to the National Anthem... a glorious German text by our old friend Rainer Wallraf...
Both nights a great joy and success....

As so often, we met old and new friends!
The brilliant Sebastian Fuchs who we worked with in Bayreuth last year, did a fantastic double act with Tobias Wenger aka Wall Clown .. a tremendous act which has had huge success in recent years; at the Edinburgh Festival too... quite breathtaking... Sebastian provides the sound track (with his mouth only!) and Tobias - with the aid of a camera turned through 90° - acts as if can float in mid air and defy gravity... as you can see both Tobias' antics on the floor, and a screen with everything the 'right' way up, it is a mesmerizing display of physical comedy...
Amazing!

This blurred photo gives you a slight impression of their genius!



....and from The Netherlands we met another excellent vocal group, The Junction - two guys and three women with high energy, cool arrangements.... singing jazz, pop, classical and a Catalan folk carol (their Soprano is from Barcelona!)


Great to meet Isa, Margriet, Joyce, Paul & Henk! (& we saw them the next day too...)

At the end of the gig, all involved, including our agent Peter Martin Jacob (a splendid bass, of course), joined together to all sing I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

Then it was down to Friedrichshafen (quite near Switzerland) - three years ago, we got stuck on a train with track issues and arrived with a few minutes to spare... this time, we took the car - surely nothing could go wrong - we got stuck in one traffic jam, and then stationary behind an accident for 1.5 hours... what joys... this time we arrived with 3/4 hour to spare... so a slight improvement.

We were in a Zelt... during Festival time on the banks of the lake...



So we shared the stage with The Junction once more & also with Swiss group BLISS ... five guys with sharp-suited confidence and humour too! Classical parodies, A splendid Swiss version of the German National Anthem to Prince... glorious!


Here they are once the jackets came off halfway through their set!
Super also to meet Claudio, Lukas, Matthias, Tom & Viktor!

Then we had a glorious lake crossing on a ferry... on the way to the airport to go home... ferry does not seem too splendid to the English ear... but here it was beautiful!


Sarah-Ann looking wistful in the early morning light...


Dawn