Countermeasure & TLQ at The Arc

Two a cappella concerts for you (if you are prepared to come to the very south of London!)...
...at The Arc in Caterham in its Skinny Bananas piano bar... come & see:

The wonderful Canadian group Countermeasure, who we met last year... are on Friday 30th January...
...and we follow on Friday 13th February...
Don't miss The Arc's mini a cappella festival!

PS: You can also catch Countermeasure at Oxford (29th) and the London a cappella Festival (31st) - which of course has other joys!!

2015 - a fresh start!

Well if you have to start somewhere with The London Quartet, there might as well be a
two-Michelin-star chef there to cook!
Marvellous meal was had by all at BMW Weld in Munich, where we entertained a select crowd in the Rolls Royce lounge.

First in a list of ways in which Sarah-Ann is just the same as Richard who she replaced....
* a penchant for chocolate mousse!
...(this of course takes 'singing beautifully' as read...)

The audience seemed unaware of the new ground being broken as they listened to Cantabile  ̶  The London Quartet... with a woman on the topline...
...and very good it was too!
Sarah-Ann's natural aplomb helped her take it all (including the last minute excitements which so often happen at corporate events) in her capable stride.

We were introduced by the delightful Antonia Niederländer, who has two passengers onboard (she is expecting twins)... and were made to feel very welcome by her, as well as Martine Rapp & Danielle Buse... Thank you to Herr Schmidt & everyone at BMW.
...& thank you to the gentleman from McDonalds (management, natch) who serenaded us with Joe Cocker songs (RIP) ...

BMW Weld had a British feel about it with the Mini on display as well as the Rolls...

We took the opportunity of seeing our old friend Rainer Wallraf; apart form being a radio presenter, show writer, translator and narrator, he has supplied many of our most splendid funny songs in German... and he lives in Munich... here he is communing with Mike, in his excellent apartment...

...and we met a new friend at the airport, on the way home, whilst we waited for the inbound (late) plane the next AM...

Someday, I'll fly away...

Happy New Year (with sad bit too!)

Happy New Year indeed...
...have a wonderful 2015!

Just in time for New Year, we had snowy scenes in Switzerland at the delightful Kloster Fischingen... once again a lovely evening: our 4th visit, and a splendid setting for a New Year's Eve concert....
Thank you to Silvan, Andrea and Michel for looking after us so well!
Fireworks at midnight were spectacular (and entirely from members of the public!)

Then we drove down to Luxembourg (the snow had stopped falling luckily) & arrived in time to celebrate a Best-of-British New Year... (altho' we did a wee bit of Strauss, natch!)
Once again we marvel at the happiness people have to wave Union flags and sing Land of Hope and Glory (albeit with Maggie & Julian Forsyth's comic additions)...
Thank you to Charles and everybody at Esch... a fantastic theatre!

This was, of course, Richard Bryan's last performance with us.... a very sad moment.  As we have said before, his influence on the group will never cease...even when he is physically gone...
It didn't affect the gig itself, but I am sure we all were feeling the weight of it as we sang.

Good luck, Richard with all that you do in the future...

...and so to steal a phrase, "The King is dead, long live the Queen".... er...
Sarah-Ann comes into the fray... onwards we go...
...do come and see us when you can!

Happy Christmas!

Festive greetings to all!

Lier was a beautiful place in which to have such a last outing just before Christmas ... beautiful city...
...& no weather-travel issues, unlike previous Belgian trips in the Festive season... Hooray.
...and a splendid on-time comfortable Eurostar home... bliss.

A great Belgian tour - thanks to Thomas Van der Spiegel for all his hard work.

Oh, we had Christmas at home!

Now we are in the middle of our run at the Crazy Coqs cabaret in central London at Brasserie Zédel... delightful venue with wonderful staff... and the shows are going very well... a little bit valedictory as they are Richard's last gigs in the UK - very last one tonight - but still a lovely atmosphere and great fun.... only slightly hampered tonight that we have very early flights in the AM to get to Switzerland... what larks!!

...sadly we even had to leave a very loyal old fan outside the room (well. he's not that old!), as they could not get any more inside.... great for us perhaps, but annoying for him... sorry, Mark!

Great trio of destinations to come.... London, Fischingen, Esch-sur-Alzette....

Asterix the Gaul? no way Ambiorix the Belgae!

Good to meet this chap in a Tongeren square...
Ambiorix
Dead impressive..(was he good with his hands?)... and amazing to know that the Belgians had sort of forgotten him until casting about for old Belgian heroes when they became independent in 1830... and lo, here he is truly heroic to the last! He even impressed J Caesar himself...

...with suitable Christmas decoration... wonder what he'd think of that!?

Great to be back in Tongeren - the oldest city in Belgium, which J.Caesar would have known.

Lovely theatre, and good to have all of the adults in the Weerts family - sorry Jo, that's you too... an honorary Weerts!  The younger members of the family were working/playing hard!

Then on to Leopoldsburg, where we had not been for 10 years... very good to re-visit there... Peter and his team looked after us well.

A quick jaunt to The Netherlands this AM... for an early-feeling concert at 11AM.. we survived!

Another new place... De Schalm at Veldhoven... excellently warm crowd delighting in CHristmas spirit...

Steve did his Elvis, of course.... and then in the evening a full show of Elvis impersonation... we like to do warm-up for other acts....

Just one more to go tonight pre-Christmas... we are in the beautiful city of Lier... not much time to look around sadly...

We're nearly there...

Maaseik & Ternat, Belgium

Two return trips... each a pleasure to be back.

Wonderful to have singers from Gerrie Guerts' Jeugd en Muziek school here in Maaseik to open our concert... they sang for 20 minutes & were fabulous... more of them in a future blog (all for their very own)...
After that fine start the church was already set for a wonderful evening...and as you might expect in such a setting the two carols we asked the audience to join with, were terrific.
Totally different programme to 13 months ago.... of course we could add lots of Christmas music to the mix. .. and even Elvis made an appearance singing Lonely this Christmas; then he left the building.

Elvis followed us to Ternat (well, actually he was driving)... and we had another delightful Christmas evening..., a quite enormous tree at the back of the stage decorated so heavily that it fell over... luckily, the stage is deep enough that it did not hit anyone! ...and it was only in rehearsal... very secure in the performance.

Just three more Christmas concerts to go before the day itself... two in Belgium and one in The Netherlands...

Showtime première & European Christmas...

At last the Aalst première of our new Belgian show, Showtime... with Sarah-Ann as guest.
From next year it will be just the new group, but the five-part première has happened!
...and we had the ever-reliable Chris Hatt on stage, fighting off the lurgy all the while... superb to have him there!

Great success it was - the show was sold out almost as soon as the tickets went on sale, and the packed audience loved it.
Well done, Sarah-Ann, we look forward to much more in 2015 and beyond!

Christmas shows in Tienen, Zaltbommel, Milan & Overijse were all excellent too!
..a wee bit busy... lots of early AMs to avoid Belgian strikers and make sure we got to Italy and back (via The Netherlands)... but cool.
Great to re-visit Tienen, to have a cool Sunday afternooon yule in Zaltbommel (The Netherlands, in case you are not sure), and to have another great afternoon in Overijse today...
Lots of sales of CDs, songbooks and of course In/Out tea towels... good to spread the word even tho' England can hardly win a cricket match these days...

We were looked after in Milan by Ilenia and Luisa very well indeed... great to have our Italian agents around.

Very beautiful city... and we were in a splendidly central hotel... right near all the sites:

...and the concert went well too - lots of Italian was spoken & the audience laughed at the right moments... so either we were word perfect, or hilariously wrong... (or both!)

La Montanara especially well received...

The Tienen hotel had two dogs.... little and large:-

Grand old lady (well, I think so.... I did not invade her privacy to look):-

...and a wee one that modelled reindeer sculptures:-

Here is one for the Cant-TLQ archives... a picture of the old and the new!
In a bar after Tienen:- (S-A was drinking Tea.... Richard not!)

Now we are in Maaseik awaiting a return concert - we were here last year.... and a female vocal group we coached a bit then, will begin the evening... looking forward to that very much.

If It's Tuesday, it must be Belgium.... (does anyone remember that fairly drab film of the 1970s? It is true for us today!)