Newsletter Archive
Newsletter from 20.04.2008 - vocaldente does America
04-20-2008
Hello dear friends of vocaldente
and welcome to our first newsletter of 2008!
After not giving any sign of life for such a long time, we owe you a big apology - the recent months have been more than eventful for us, producing a whole pile of news to report on now.
That is to say, vocaldente have been busy on several fronts lately. Firstly, we're already rehearsing with our new 2nd tenor (we finally found one!) who's gonna be Niklas' successor in a few months time - more on that soon. Aside from that, we're preparing for appearances in several competitions, working on new songs - the first studio sessions for the recording of our next CD are now set - and of course, we're touring all across Germany as well as over in Switzerland:LIVE. But there's also been a lot of rumbling behind the scenes: our website has been renovated for instance, and is now available bilingually in both German and English. And there's a good reason for this!
Our victory at the TAMPEREEN SÄVEL competition in Finland has guided us on new paths leading (almost) all around the globe: In autumn, there's gonna be a 2 week tour across Taiwan and Singapore, and we've received an invitation to the 2008 East Coast A Cappella Summit, one of the biggest a cappella festivals in the United States. As a prelude to the latter, we flew to Washington D.C. at the beginning of March to give a few gigs and concerts - as well as a workshop called "The Art and Style of vocaldente"… which sounds incredibly flattering, and made us enormously proud :-)
Actually, we were encouraged to apply for the Harmony Sweepstakes A Cappella Festival 2008 by the CASA ("the Contemporary A Cappella Society"). The Harmony Sweepstakes are also known as the "All American Open A Cappella Championship", an expression already hinting on the high significance - and quality - vocal music has in the States, even more than in Germany. Every year, more than 100 bands and groups (particularly from the US) are applying to be part of this "vocal battle"; 72 are eventually chosen and compete in 8 Regional Finals.
Therefore, we were lucky to be selected to compete in the Mid-Atlantics Regional Final taking place on April 5 in Washington D.C. As much as we dislike this, we had to compete with microphones, due to the severe Harmony Sweepstakes rules regarding the use of identical microphones and microphone settings. In addition, performances were limited to 10 minutes (overrunning this for more than 15 minutes brought penalty points!!!). Nevertheless…
…we made it! With a performance lasting exactly 9 minutes and 59 seconds (!!!), we claimed both the 1st Prize of the jury as well as the Audience Favorite Award. How utterly overwhelmed we are! We now have the honour of hosting next year's Mid-Atlantics in Washington D.C. in 2009 - and to enter the National Finals at the beginning of May in San Francisco, against the crème de la crème of American vocal music. Hence, our only motto can and must be "It's the taking part that counts", when we perform in front an audience of 2,000, against the best a cappella can offer: The seven winners of the other Regional Finals.
Of course though, before, there'll be further gigs - not as far away, but just as exciting: You can find them, as always, in the live section of our websiteLIVE. A propros the website: our first videocast has been online for a couple of weeks now, offering a peek behind the stages of vocaldente on tour in Vienna and Budapest. And as you're surfing around happily, don't forget to visit our new MySpace page. We're already proud to count vocal legends such as The King's Singers, Real Group, The Swingle Sisters, and Take 6, as friends and we're delighted about every new name on the list - as well as new comments and greetings!
If you visit our website, remember that the content and site structure has changed since our renovation, so you might have to modify your bookmarks and favorites, if the index or guestbook page doesn't work anymore. Simply refresh your bookmarks if necessary.
So, what's the vocaldente live schedule like in May? We're gonna perform on the Landesgartenschau (National Garden Show) in Bad Rappenau, the 13th Sparkassen-A-Cappella-Festival in the Westfalenpark in Dortmund, the A Cappella Pop-Jazz Music Festival "Sredi zvezd" in Slovenia - and next Saturday, we've got the honour of performing at the opening concert of the Internationale A-Cappella-Woche Hannover in the Schauspielhaus Hannover, something we, despite all the delightful international experiences behind and ahead, still enjoy especially!
Enjoy it together with us - and cross fingers for San Francisco! All the latest news on how we're faring there can be found - where else! - on our website.
Kindest regards,
vocaldente
and welcome to our first newsletter of 2008!
After not giving any sign of life for such a long time, we owe you a big apology - the recent months have been more than eventful for us, producing a whole pile of news to report on now.
That is to say, vocaldente have been busy on several fronts lately. Firstly, we're already rehearsing with our new 2nd tenor (we finally found one!) who's gonna be Niklas' successor in a few months time - more on that soon. Aside from that, we're preparing for appearances in several competitions, working on new songs - the first studio sessions for the recording of our next CD are now set - and of course, we're touring all across Germany as well as over in Switzerland:LIVE. But there's also been a lot of rumbling behind the scenes: our website has been renovated for instance, and is now available bilingually in both German and English. And there's a good reason for this!
Our victory at the TAMPEREEN SÄVEL competition in Finland has guided us on new paths leading (almost) all around the globe: In autumn, there's gonna be a 2 week tour across Taiwan and Singapore, and we've received an invitation to the 2008 East Coast A Cappella Summit, one of the biggest a cappella festivals in the United States. As a prelude to the latter, we flew to Washington D.C. at the beginning of March to give a few gigs and concerts - as well as a workshop called "The Art and Style of vocaldente"… which sounds incredibly flattering, and made us enormously proud :-)
Actually, we were encouraged to apply for the Harmony Sweepstakes A Cappella Festival 2008 by the CASA ("the Contemporary A Cappella Society"). The Harmony Sweepstakes are also known as the "All American Open A Cappella Championship", an expression already hinting on the high significance - and quality - vocal music has in the States, even more than in Germany. Every year, more than 100 bands and groups (particularly from the US) are applying to be part of this "vocal battle"; 72 are eventually chosen and compete in 8 Regional Finals.
Therefore, we were lucky to be selected to compete in the Mid-Atlantics Regional Final taking place on April 5 in Washington D.C. As much as we dislike this, we had to compete with microphones, due to the severe Harmony Sweepstakes rules regarding the use of identical microphones and microphone settings. In addition, performances were limited to 10 minutes (overrunning this for more than 15 minutes brought penalty points!!!). Nevertheless…
…we made it! With a performance lasting exactly 9 minutes and 59 seconds (!!!), we claimed both the 1st Prize of the jury as well as the Audience Favorite Award. How utterly overwhelmed we are! We now have the honour of hosting next year's Mid-Atlantics in Washington D.C. in 2009 - and to enter the National Finals at the beginning of May in San Francisco, against the crème de la crème of American vocal music. Hence, our only motto can and must be "It's the taking part that counts", when we perform in front an audience of 2,000, against the best a cappella can offer: The seven winners of the other Regional Finals.
Of course though, before, there'll be further gigs - not as far away, but just as exciting: You can find them, as always, in the live section of our websiteLIVE. A propros the website: our first videocast has been online for a couple of weeks now, offering a peek behind the stages of vocaldente on tour in Vienna and Budapest. And as you're surfing around happily, don't forget to visit our new MySpace page. We're already proud to count vocal legends such as The King's Singers, Real Group, The Swingle Sisters, and Take 6, as friends and we're delighted about every new name on the list - as well as new comments and greetings!
If you visit our website, remember that the content and site structure has changed since our renovation, so you might have to modify your bookmarks and favorites, if the index or guestbook page doesn't work anymore. Simply refresh your bookmarks if necessary.
So, what's the vocaldente live schedule like in May? We're gonna perform on the Landesgartenschau (National Garden Show) in Bad Rappenau, the 13th Sparkassen-A-Cappella-Festival in the Westfalenpark in Dortmund, the A Cappella Pop-Jazz Music Festival "Sredi zvezd" in Slovenia - and next Saturday, we've got the honour of performing at the opening concert of the Internationale A-Cappella-Woche Hannover in the Schauspielhaus Hannover, something we, despite all the delightful international experiences behind and ahead, still enjoy especially!
Enjoy it together with us - and cross fingers for San Francisco! All the latest news on how we're faring there can be found - where else! - on our website.
Kindest regards,
vocaldente
