German joys... more to come

To Lüdenscheid for an a cappella nacht; sharing the stage with two other splendid vocal groups...
The Junction from the Netherlands
&
Bliss from Switzerland
We had previously shared a gig in the summer sunshine at Friedrichshafen, but it was a winter wonder this time.

Glorious, as often in Germany, to have Bettina looking after us - thank you... Our German agent, Peter Martin Jacob is slumming it in Los Angeles!

We had an excellent time in front of a very enthusiastic audience - they did especially enjoy our instructions as to how to make a cup of tea, but all was great!
We must give many thanks for Mike who so gloriously did our sound and lights, he was very kindly lent to us by The Junction... hooray!

Great to hear the other two groups of course... a feast for the audience of 120 minutes of a cappella...
As the final act of the night, we sang all together Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy - and marvellous it was!

And here is the view from my hotel window... a little bit of Wald for you!

We have lots more German splendour for the next two months... look on our site, but this week on Thursday and Saturday, we're in Baden Baden & Brackenheim doing Dinner for 4; then on to Buchholz, Stade, Wolfenbüttel & Wolfsburg for some more shared gigs...

Ausgezeichnet!

German tourette

Three splendid evenings on a mini tour of Germany...
Illingen (Saar), Langenau and Lahr...

The first two evenings were an outing of our Dinner for 4 show which was a Feast in all manner of musical styles... from Monteverdi's Lamenta della Ninfa to Jason Mraz's I'm Yours...
...with a few references to Dinner for One - the New Year comedy classic that the mainland Europeans know so much better than we do... (do have a look, if you do not know it, fellow Britains!)
We were returning to both places & it was as ever lovely to meet old friends - excellent to introduce the new group to everyone.

We met our first snowfall of the season too... which was fun; even if it did put at least an extra hour onto all our drives over the four days!

The third evening was an a cappella nacht, organised as ever with aplomb by Peter Martin Jacob; we met two groups who are old friends and colleagues vocaldente, who we met previously in Vienna (as part of the Voicemania Festival - where we are again next week); and also the lovely medlz... four young ladies from Dresden... Excellent to see them all again... and to sing Stand by Me as a massive encore altogether at the end of the night... marvellous.

And then at the end, we experienced a new airport...(yes, simple things etc)... Karslruhe Baden Baden was a good experience... although the power points were only available in the kids play area...

Bayreuth Mitsing #2

Another glory... one of our periodic concerts in a brewery!
Hooray!
This was another Mitsing evening where the audience join in in most of the songs... what fun it was - again...

Herzogkeller was a fantastic venue with a very welcoming atmosphere (and of course splendid beer!)...and lovely ever-attentive staff.

A large crowd appeared ready to sing, and accompanied us in varied styles and songs... We sang together (amongst other things) Yesterday, Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus (in 4-part harmony), Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence, two songs from America's deep south - one of those in German! -  and Jason Mraz's I'm Yours...
Phew!

Some old faces (well, not old exactly, but seen before by us!), as well as new friends... chatting afterwards with enthusiasm and joy.  Also we were able to have some of the lovely local beer... what excellence...

We also had the first opportunity of selling copies of our new CD - A Song for Christmas - and people bought them too!

In the hotel afterwards, Wagner borrowed Chris's phone for a few calls... (tho' he wasn't very talkative!)

More Germany at the end of this week... details on our site, but we are at Illingen, Saar; Langenau & Lahr... Thursday-Saturday.

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

Heilbronn Heights

Another excellent shared a cappella gig with other wonderful groups... this time: the beautiful Medlz & the terrific mundARTmonika...

A lovely evening, once again introduced and organised by our friend, Peter Martin Jacob...

I know it sounds strange but this took place in an arts space in a bank!  No, really... it was an excellent place to sing, and the big audience loved it all... We were in Unter der Pyramide within Kreissparkasse (yes, that's the bank)... all glorious!
This is a great tradition in Germany... we did a Christmas concert in a bank last year; rather than having art in them, our large UK banks are being turned into pubs and estate agents (one of those seems more useful than the other!)

The Medlz were their glamorous and musically strong selves as ever & mundARTmonika sang with fire and fun...
We went down well too... a great evening of AHA a cappella!  The audience joined in excellently with angry percussion in Rolling in the Deep and beauty in The Lion Sleeps Tonight!

All three groups joined together at the end to sing an improvised version of Stand By Me... and the audience (or lots of them) did!

Here we are summoning up the energy to give it to them! (Bunny ears from Sabine!)

Tonight in Montabaur, we perform in a Folk and Fools evening (which are we?)... with Irish folk band, Caladh Nua, & a terrific pair of French fools, Duel... all shall be fantastic!

Fabulous vocal glory in Germany!

Brilliant time in Germany... not only lovely gigs and audiences, but more opportunities to meet others singers/groups & enjoy their excellence!

These last few days we have met/shared stages with a wonderful array of talent.

Firstly as part of SangesLust - a four day vocal Festival in Bayreuth (October 1st - 4th)...
Thanks to Manuel and Nadia of the Bayreuth marketing team... good to see you again.

We sang in the street with the other groups in the afternoon - Bayreuth was alive with singing for 4 days (perhaps it always is - singing of one kind or another!)...
Then in the evening, we and Jazzation (from Hungary), Ringmasters (from Sweden), Sebastian Fuchs (German beatboxer) & Singers (from Denmark) went to five different restaurants doing 20 minutes in each... so the audience heard all five acts in one night... quite tiring, but excellent!
It is certainly interesting that performing the same 20 minutes 5 times is much more exhausting than doing 100 minutes in one place!
Audiences were fabulously receptive, and clearly enjoyed the different styles of the five acts...
Sadly the continuing gig in the last bar/restaurant was curtailed by our feeling the need to sleep having been up since 5AM... The Ringmasters were still pinging away at 3.30AM, we were told, before going to a club - ah, youth! They have recently been Barbershop World Champions and sound utterly terrific - however much sleep they get!
We only heard one song from these people, as we were always in different restaurants, but in the introductory serenade from ein balkon in the city, we heard:

Sebastian Fuchs' excellent beatboxing:

Jazzation's beautiful rendition of Fly Me to the Moon:

Singers' wonderful version of Stevie Wonder's As:

...and Ringmasters' spell-binding performance of Tonight from West Side Story - it just went up and up and up...

We performed Penny Lane... and here is most of us, watching Sebastian do his thing!

A long but very rewarding evening...

The next day was the first in our Mitsing concerts... our mitsing debut.

This is a very big thing in Germany; along the lines of Messiah from scratch concerts and singalong Sound of Music showings in the UK... Germany has gone mitsing-mad... in all manner of styles, classical, folk, schlager & pop.

...and loads of keen singers turned out at then Bayreuth Stadhalle to join with us!

We sang lots of new things too.... including Rolling in the Deep (Adele), When You Say Nothing at All (Ronan Keating), Another Day in Paradise (Phil Collins), California Dreamin' (The Mamas & the Papas) & Happy (Pharrell Williams... but a cappella!) to name but a few...

But they sang anything with us... Killing Me Softly, Beatles, Abba and even Ich war noch niemals in New York...

It was a really great experience for us all; gliding along on a sea of huge singing from the audience... (when we remembered to change the screen with the words on!   Thanks to Chris this was pretty slick! He has a younger brain than the rest of us)...

Sarah-Ann was especially excellent at getting the crowd to a fever-pitch of participation and we had a thoroughly delightful evening... (even including torch waving) ... do seek out film of this on facebook and/or twitter! 

S-A's flute solo in California Dreamin' a particular highlight...

After the delights of Bayreuth, we went to Blieskastel, where we have been many times before... for an a cappella nacht... sharing the stage once more and seeing old friends. 

We re-met Delta Q, who we invited to Romania two years ago... another brilliant quartet; and met the splendid OnAir for the first time... who are as much sound sculpture as vocal group...

The audience seemed to agree; another evening of varied vocal styles, but great entertainment...

Good to hear the other groups in such good form.

Here we all are.... once we had finished (14 happy singers...)!

Thanks, Peter Martin Jacob, Hamed, Bettina, Nicole and all the Magenta team for making these last few days happen.

Brilliant!

Richarddämmerung - last of DE

So Richard's last three German concerts have happened...
Wangen im Allgäu, Rockenhausen & Itzehoe...

Great to be in Wangen once more (our 6th visit)... as ever a great reception and a beautiful area of Germany to spend some time... A Richard-farewell concert - with presents!

This is what a foyer of a bank can look like when it has a concert at Christmas... Sparkasse at Rockenhausen... a very delightful experience, & our first totally seasonal outing of the year..(well. apart from our Orthodox Belorussian Christmas in January!)... lots more to come.

Then it was to Itzehoe for another Richard-farewell - the final DE fling!

Lovely people again amidst excellent Christmas delights of shopping till midnight!

...and an audience member very kindly put some chocolate bears on our chairs (I am a poet, and I don't know it)... as it was St Nikolaus yesterday... We even received a St Nikolaus (in chocolate, natch) from the organisers... yum!

Now it is on to Belgium for our Belgian Christmas extravaganza (with a bit of Italy and the Netherlands too)... Deurne this evening where we are very pleased to be joined by pianist-extraorinaire, Chris Hatt...

Mannheim

Excellent start to 12 Magenta/Peter Martin Jakob concerts this month in Germany... at Capitol, Mannheim...

Lovely space to sing in, enthusiastic audience, lots of CDs and songbooks sold... and even a cricket tea-towel, would you believe it?!

Marvellous all round; and an English cricket umpire/scorer/coach there too.... he keeps cricket going in this region of Germany.

This morning we had breakfast surrounded by an 80s (well, and still going) rock band, and their entourage, whose name I did not catch... they said they were going to somewhere in the GDR in a couple of days... still stuck in the 80s, it seems!

Now we're in Langenau awaiting another glorious Christmas evening...

Sunny (occasionally stormy) Germany

Two splendid gigs in the sunshine in Germany...
Firstly a Peter Martin Jakob a cappella nacht in Fritzlar... in the open air just outside the Dom... In the afternoon this did look a very dodgy idea, but we had rain just for about two minutes and then all was blessedly (and decidedly) hot.
We shared the stage with excellent VoxNorth from Denmark (altho', like so many excellent vocal groups, one of them was a Belgian! - their wonderful Flemish chap is Roxorloops, beatboxer par excellence)...
They provided a lovely mix of Nordic folk sounds with percussion (both live and mouth) & pop/jazz too... Great to have another vocal group friendship!
The audience were terrific & happy to stay up nice and late to see both acts... we were delighted that our Dutch friends, 'Reet, Jo, Jolene & Jasper were only holiday in Germany near enough to come and see us - a great joy to see them! ... also Birgit came for the second weekend in a row - one day we shall have a concert where she actually lives, so she need not drive!

Then it was simply a train ride down to Friedrichshafen:- simple you might think... but not when we are chasing an electrical storm all the way down there... enough trees were felled on a particular branch of track that we were delayed for four hours & had to finish the trip by taxi.... We did got the performance tent on the banks of lake Constance with 42 minutes to spare!
Friedrichshafen was both a great relief, and as beautiful as when we were here in 2001 & 2002.
The concert went very well - an excellently excitable & appreciative audience & thanks to our Swiss friend Silvan for coming over the border... We'll see him again in early September for the two gigs he has organised in CH.

They did have a dark beer for me to sup afterwards - splendidly names Zeppelin, which I drank in the shadow of Zeppelin house, just down the road from the Museum... there was even one in the sky as we started our journey home this am...
If you're interested - New Zeppelin History

We have an interesting Friday this week - more news once it is done... (sorry, you're going to have to wait!)

Wunsiedel, DE

Another excellent a cappella nacht from Magenta and Peter Martin Jacob, along with Six Pack & The House Jacks.
Splendid to see our old friends Six Pack from Germany, and to meet The House Jacks from the USA for the first time... including that a cappella powerhouse, Deke Sharon.

As ever, a brilliant mix of acts, such contrasts... Six Pack, very funny... Merlin Monroe especially!  The House Jacks all power and beatbox action (tho' with a glowing and sweet rendition of Summertime too)... they were the first beatbox vocal group... and they are very fine at it...

Wonderful moment in the bar afterwards, when Peter, being his smooth delightful self, decided to grace the Hungarian waitress with some Hungarian... the quite difficult word 'egeszegere' meaning... cheers... we all dutifully intoned this to her, and she was flattered and a little flustered by it... so much so that she dropped a tray with glasses on it on the way back to the bar... Peter was a little embarrassed, but we all knew his intentions were good... and she continued to serve us!

Back to the US tomorrow.. what fun!

Roseau, MN then Europe

A 'final' concert at Roseau, MN, (that's Rose-oh, btw) before we hop over to Europe (Wunsiedel, Germany) for a quick a cappella nacht with Peter Martin Jacob and Magenta...

We had a splendid Guy Fawkes night in Roseau (Ian, in the audience, from Maidenhead told us we had not mentioned this anniversary! - he was right...); great evening again, there will be more next week... after we have had a quick German sojourn...

We still have Chris with us; no news yet of latest Cantabile new generation...

Aeroports, planes... marvellous...

Blieskastel, DE

Another excellent a cappella nacht organised by Peter Martin Jacob & Magenta, this time in Blieskastel... with some new and some old friends...
Lovely to see our Belorussian friends, Camerata, and to meet the male quartet Die Bogarts who are based in Berlin.
A packed crowd enjoyed all three groups & cheered us to the rafters...
A terrific evening, and lots of convivial meals too!
Delightfully, we're back in the same hall in Blieskastel, doing our Best of British show on Valentine's Day next year... How romantic!

In the last few days we have been rehearsing, and are now looking forward to our bits in Seasons of Love at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow evening... at 6pm... along with Stilgoe and Skellern, Janie Dee, Stephen Tomkinson, Lynda Bellingham and Alan Titchmarsh amongst others, as well as the City of London Philharmonic and our old friends the West End Chorus...
We're singing Scarborough Fair as well as the Neil Sedaka hit - Calendar Girl - the evening is in aid of Leukaemia charities, and some of those Calendar Girls will be there...
Climaxing with that great WI hit... Jerusalem!

Tuttlingen Summer Festival

Another splendid German a cappella nacht organised by Peter Martin Jakob and Magenta - three groups, as ever; last night we were joined by the delightful sonic suite & the hilarious KaiRo  - all together in the Summer Festival at Tuttlingen.  The crammed-full tent was thoroughly noisily happy with each of us - tremendous all round...

Now we are in Vienna, awaiting three nights at the Theater am Spittelberg - splendid... and in glorious sunshine, which after the summer so far, is a bit of a shock to the system.