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!

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!)

Bayreuth - die Kirche

Our concert at the Ordenskirche Bayreuth has happened... and we are still alive!
Thrillingly lots of people turned up, some after the church service, others who had seen us last night in die a cappella Nacht - and we gave them an hour of early tunes... Bingen, Byrd, Bennet, Monteverdi, Arbeau, Arcadelt & Weelkes through Rossini, Genée & Sullivan up to Richard Rodney Bennett [no, he's not so early, but the piece we sang is a setting of 17th Century poet, Francis Quarles!]

Wonderful - even more so, having repaired to a typical upper Franconian restaurant for meat and dumplings and lovely dark beer of the region...!
The aeroport beckons...

Splendid... home for a quick day off, then the Savoy on Tuesday night... entertaining at a meeting of Urologists... hope they won't be too probing...

Biberach

Marvellous 'Die a cappella Nacht' in Biberach... for the uninitiated, this is not an a cappella evening which makes you die... but one in Germany, thus with an article... designed and promoted by our German agent, Peter Martin Jacob and his agency, Magenta...

Two groups were with us - our old friends from this circuit, the Dresden group, Medlz - they have lost their definite article since we last worked with them in 2007... we were all amazed that it was four years ago that we last met... they looked remarkably similar; although there is a new one of them! Lydia has an 11-month old daughter... but Bine, Lydia, Silli, Mary and Nelly were as wonderful as ever [if not better!] - fantastic tuning...
...and some new friends, muSix from Berlin... a great group of er... five, who were splendid and polished too...
In fact this is a bit of a theme of the evening, Medlz started as a nine-part group, and muSix as a six-part; clearly they both decided five was best after all... & both groups met whilst singing together in children's choirs... that's why they still seem so young!

A very fine evening for all of us onstage, and by the sound of it, the audience too...
...snuck a few more Cricket CDs out too... to Germans!!

On to Bayreuth tomorrow with Medlz... and a mystery someone else...