Wels (AT), Burggarten Open Air
SING MY SOUL
It was my first concert since the lockdown, due to the Covid 19 - pandemic that changed the whole world. And in between window concerts in Vienna and our recording sessions for Händel, I wasn’t really aware of how long it’s been since the last time I played live. It felt strange and wonderfully exciting to be back getting ready for a concert. We started our journey from Vienna round 14:00, after calling back and forth with Hans Wadauer, who invited us to play our Händel in my hometown in Wels. It was an open air concert and the forecast was predicting changing weather with alternating rain, sunshine and thunderstorms, so we weren’t sure if we could play or not. Nevertheless we couldn’t let the chance of playing live again pass us by, so Tobi, Dominik, Greg and I drove to Wels in good faith. The moment we arrived at the venue for our soundcheck, it started to rain : ). So we went back to my mum’s house and I made some pasta while we hoped for the sun to come back out. And she did : ). At 18:30 we gave the soundcheck another try and all the kind and motivated helping hands of the open air concerts at the Burggarten were already setting the stage for us. And even though it was pretty cold and wet, people came out and gathered to listen to the songs and arias of Händel arranged by - yess you guessed it - mathias rüegg. Right on time, as the sun went down and church bells rang we played our Händel for the very first time in front of an audience. It felt wonderful. I was moved to tears right after our opener „O ruddier than the cherry“ because I felt so liberated to be singing and playing again. Oh how much I missed it all, the excitement, the concentration of making music together, experiencing and sharing an evening. I think we did pretty good : ) even though temperature and humidity made intonation quite a challenge but Tobias Faulhammer on guitar, Gregor Aufmesser on double bass and Dominik Fuss on trumpet and flugelhorn gave their best und so did I.. Oh I loved our double time - crazyness in Transporting Joy and singing my favorite Händel ballads Piangerò and Lascia Ch'io Pianga, and Wherever You Walk while the sun went down and church bells rang again when we played Sans y Penser as our final piece - before the encores : )… It was a pleasure to share the stage with Dominik, Tobias and Gregor and I can only hope that there will be many, many opportunities like this in the future and that we will keep playing - come rain or come shine.
