The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
The tour upon which we've just embarked reminds me of my early days in the group, when we would regularly spend 2-3 weeks driving around Germany and visiting churches and halls wherein the KS have performed since time immemorial. Our schedules have evolved a bit over the past decade or so, such that we rarely spend this much time in Germanic-speaking countries in a single stint, so it's exciting to be reliving those days of yore!One reason why this patch is structured in this way is that we're performing alongside Sabine Meyer and friends, taking material from an old EMI album from the 1980s entitled "An der schoenen blauen Donau" ("By the beautiful blue Danube") which is, as the title suggests, music adapted from Johann Strauss' wonderful waltzes. It's unmistakeably Austrian/German repertoire, and a great delight to perform! None of us currently in the group has worked with Sabine before, so this gives us the opportunity to approach the repertoire completely fresh and to re-boot the project. One of the great benefits of the KS library, of course, is that we're able to search back through programmes that could be 30 years old, or more, and re-polish material that is long overdue for fresh exposure.With the GOLD album firmly behind us (well, save for the post-production and mixing!) we're able to focus on current repertoire and drill down into some work on our sound, in advance of the 50th Anniversary Season. We're often asked what we do in our rehearsals; people are surprised that we do so much talking and so little singing! The answer, really, is that we use these hours to polish and hone our sound. Rehearsals for us are not about "note-bashing"; a good lesson for all singers out there is to arrive at rehearsals knowing your notes perfectly!Right, off to work on some waltzes...
