August sunshine

Two delightful days in the August sunshine (tho' with a small modicum of rain...)
Firstly a shared gig in Dresden with the lovely Medlz, and another German band HörBänd...
As ever the concert was a splendid celebration of a cappella from three different standpoints.
We touched on Brexit and were given the usual mixture of laughter, confusion and hilarity!
A full crowd in the theatre had an excellent evening of music, culminating in an all-three-group rendition of.... (oh yes)... Stand By Me !
Wonderful.

Here we all are, after it was done!

A possible lovely morning appreciating the wonders of Dresden was somewhat marred by torrential rain - but as we watch the terrible storms in the US & Caribbean, perhaps I should let that pass...

Then it was off to sunny England (near Luton) to celebrate the birthday of a very long-standing supporter of the group, Carol Jones... she first saw us in the late 1980s, and we sang for the assembled throng many songs old and new from all the years she has come to see us... one of her favourites Anthem from Chess & of course (it had to be)... Neil Sedaka's Oh Carol !

A lovely afternoon in the English sunshine with friends - what more could one ask...

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...

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!

DE tour then pastures new... with Sarah-Ann

Last two dates of the November outings to Germany... in Nienburg/Weser & Bremerhaven...

Two more performances of Best of British with the splendid Paul Plummer at the piano...

This was our second show in Nienburg, and the place was full to the brim, and much flag-waving and excitement ensued!
Our fellow Magenta artists, Medlz are here in Nienburg next Saturday (22nd November)!
Do go along... they're cool...

Then we went up to the fishing port/harbour of Bremerhaven... and ate lots of wonderful fish... (it is difficult not to eat fish here!)...
...and to a theatre we have not been in for ten years... excellent to be back...
Excellent staff and support and an audience prepared to let their hair down!

Now it is a totally new venture... we have never done this before when we have changed members, but we have three Belgian gigs where both Richard and Sarah-Ann will perform together... it will be our new show for Belgium - Showtime! (This will be called Memories in Germany)... where we celebrate music for the stage...
Sarah-Ann will be our guest for a few songs on Thursday at the Lemmens Instituut, and then in December at shows at Aalst and Wemmel. All details on our site.

From the 29th November we are ferociously busy... (more details anon - tho' you can look at our site)

Hooray for all that!

Beautiful Northern Germany

Well, we landed in the capital of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schwerin & were very impressed!
We have to admit to not having heard of it before!
A beautiful place - Schwerin castle looking gloriously Disney and lots of lakeside loveliness...

It was another splendid 'a cappella nacht' - we were with two other groups; our old friends, the lovely Medlz from Dresden, and some new friends, Juice Box from Northern Germany...
Great to see the girls again, and they began the evening wonderfully, coping well with the declining temperature; then Juice Box gave us their folk/latin/a cappella music... mostly written by one of the group Joachim Rust... delightful!

As ever, such a pleasure to share the stage with other vocal groups... and share our musics with an enthusiastic crowd...

Richard & Steve had great fun with the above; Richard flounced off (acting, for dramatic effect, natch) &Steve went to get him... in the dark Richard cracked his shins on the sheep... it did its job of protecting the wires well yet it did hurt Richard's legs!  As Steve replaced the animal, Richard reminded Steve of his needing to think of legal issues when handling a sheep...

Wilhelmshaven, DE

Wonderful to start the 16th a cappella festival here - lots of wonderful groups to follow, including old friends Die Medlz and The Magnets, as well as The Wise Guys (DE) and Voice Male (BE)... Excellent festival and excellent brimming full church to see us perform two gigs in one!  As we were in a church, in the first half, we performed lots of early tunes & church music, from Hildegard of Bingen to recently-deceased Richard Rodney Bennett.... then in the second we did a wee synthesis of our Best of British programme... exhausting to do two shows in one... but the full crowd made it all worthwhile...
Not many shows start with Hildegard of Bingen, Byrd & Arcadelt and end with Yesterday and The Lambeth Walk backwards!

Lots of joy for the rest of the Festival...

...and we're off to the snowy wastes of Belgium on Sunday - wish us luck!!

Fantastic International Festival

Very splendid evening in Alba Iulia, Romania.  Our friend Mihai Coser asked us to create an a cappella evening for him & it was a great success.
All the groups were wonderful; Die Medlz from Germany, Vocal Tempo from Cuba & Jukebox Trio from Russia; and we were all on stage at the end giving impromptu performances of No woman, no cry & Stand by Me.
The atmosphere in the open air was super (and hot!) - today there are performances of Hansel & Gretel and Carmina Burana... should be terrific.
We all were very pleased and everyone wants to do it again asap....

Brilliant.

We had to rise pretty early (3am UK time) to get to our next date: another a cappella night in Hannover... more news later (I have woken up now!)...

Neustadt am Rübenberge

A wonderful night in Neustadt am Rübenberge, near Hanover, as part of the Internationale a-cappella-woche Hannover; a packed house with fantastic attentiveness - they all seemed to have a glorious time...

Once again, we introduced Cricket Tea Towel - the Ins and Outs of Cricket (our Arvo Pärt pastiche from Songs of Cricket)... & they laughed as they should! More conversions to cricket in Germany!

We were looked after splendidly - thank you, Sven and the team - and we will be back on Sunday for the last concert of the a cappella woche - sharing a bill with the Estonian Heinavanker, the Irish White Raven & the Swedish The Real Group.

Should be a great evening! 

But before then, we will pop to Alba Iulia, Romania to share a gig we were asked to plan, with the German Medlz, the Russian Jukebox Trio & the Cuban/Spanish Vocal Tempo.

A very international time this weekend...

Dresden & Jena

After an excellent second rehearsal with the orchestra for the 1st and the 2nd, we travelled to Dresden, for a concert in the beautiful Dreikönigskirche
It has a beautiful Baroque altar [well, 4/5ths of same] which along with the back wall and the tower was all that was left by the RAF in 1945; then the Russians destroyed a bit more.... after much fundraising from all over the world, it was finally reopened as a church in 1990... clearly the damaged altar is a wonderful and moving monument. There is also a frieze along the back wall which looks original.
The church was full to bursting, and they were in a mood for a New Year's concert... even happy to rattle their keys about in Sleigh Ride.
A lovely evening - and even Bine from Die Medlz came, which was nice...

And tonight we have been in the Volkshaus in Jena - another packed house... an early concert, pre-fireworks... they are starting up in earnest now... Wonderful place to sing in, and a delightful, and seemingly delighted crowd... lots of CDs spread amongst Eastern Germany over the last two days.
We were looked after splendidly, and were given lots to eat.. what more could one desire.

Happy New Year!

PS: Thanks to Dr Wok in Jena for my lunch today, tho' did you have to put sugar in my green tea?

Bayreuth

No Wagnerian gestures onstage tonight, just Medlz and us once more, but tonight joined by Six Pack - we realise it is even longer since we saw these guys... 7 years... they were cool and fun as ever... and they all became 7-pack when their old bass, Peter Martin Jacob, joined them for a rendition of Ring of Fire...

All marvellous - and the audience were, if anything, even more enthusiastic than last night...

A morning concert in the church beckons... at 11am... tra la la la la....

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...