Newsletter Archive

Merry Christmas, dear friends of vocaldente,

Santa Claus and his helpers are coming, and the year's drawing to a close. Of course, vocaldente is the last thing that’s needed... But just as any self-respecting TV channel or newspaper, big corporation or political party, are now offering their own final reviews of the year – so are we! And in 2007, a lot happened to us, as we experienced an amazing amount in a busy year that has even left us feeling a little bit proud of it all… ;)

It's not even even 12 months ago that Tobi joined vocaldente as our new bass in January. Since then we've performed 79 concerts and gigs altogether in Germany and abroad. Besides the whole of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, we've been to Finland and Hungary (i.e. November saw us in three European capitals: Vienna, Budapest and Berlin in the space of one week); Invitations to (inter-)national festivals, such as those to the 4th Zurich acapella night, the A Cappella Festival Pfäffikon (again in Switzerland), Voicemania in Vienna (Austria) and the Ilmenau TonART-Festival (Germany), brought us some very nice experiences, a growing fanbase and new friends from other vocal groups.

We also won one first and two second prizes and audience prizes for best group at the most important national (jugend kulturell Förderpreis) and international vocal and a cappella contests in Europe (the TAMPEREEN SÄVEL in Tampere/Finland and vokal.total in Graz/Austria). We are absolutely thrilled to have won these special honours. Once again many, many thanks to the jury, to John Potter (formerly of The Hilliard Ensemble), Anders Jalkéus (The Real Group), Ward Swingle (founder of the The Swingle Singers), Jussi Chydenius (Rajaton), Claudia Reinhard (Singer Pur) or Thomas Aydintan (basta), and of course we thank the audiences from all the countries.

But is this is this reason enough to rest on our laurels? Just the opposite! And therefore – like several times before - we took part in the masterclass of the famous King’s Singers during the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Lubeck (Northern Germany) in July, spending four creative and very educational days with our idols. Whenever we work with the King’s Singers it is a incredibly motivating experience for us.

And what's up next?

2008 holds a few challenges for us: Concerts and Festivals in Switzerland, France, Italy and Germany are awaiting us. The tour to Taiwan in October is getting more and more concrete. For the first time we have a stand at the international Culture Fair in Freiburg (Germany) and we are finally together with Viva Voce and LaLeLu (two German groups) on tour (work with other groups is also planned…). The first dates for 2008 are already online: Link “Live”.

Offstage, there is also a lot of work for us: We plan to record our second CD “Mit der Zweiten hört man besser”, a lot of new arrangements are waiting to be tackled and – and with that, we come to the one and only downside in 2008:

Niklas will leave vocaldente. Don't worry, it won't be that quickly, just when we have found a worthy substitute for him, which we are looking for intensively. Niklas’ time to pursue his passion for the guitar, which was cut shorter and shorter because of vocaldente, was the reason for his decision. A decision, that was not easy for him (and still isn't) and one that we accepted only under protest. When he will finally leave and when we present his successor, can both be checked on our homepage soon. 

And regarding the homepage:

After two years, we will raise our internet presence. We are working on a lot of features and new layout concepts fill our inboxs almost daily. But before we change, we have already some new things. The first – ok, this is not overlooked if your email account is able to read HTML – is the new design of our newsletter, which not only looks like our homepage, but also is linked there; i.e. to the references in menu press. Whoever wants to know what we are doing, besides giving concerts, can get all the information there. Also vocaldente’s first podcast is ready soon. It can be downloaded and subscribed to shortly.

In addition, we can now also be found on MySpace, with an exclusive live version of "Thank God I'm A Country Boy" at the Deutschen Schauspielhaus Hamburg (German Artisthouse Hamburg) for download from November 1st. Our brand new MySpace page at www.myspace.com/vocaldente is still under construction and is extended frequently. Anyhow, we are even now very pleased by the numerous visits, greetings, comments and many new friends!

And that doesn't just go for there, but anywhere we sing in the New Year. We are very curious what 2008 will bring to us, but we promise it will bring lots of vocaldente! :-)

We wish a Merry Christmas to all, happy holidays and a nice turn of the year (which we will spend on tour in the Allgäu in the south of Germany). We'll see you in the next year and till then, we send our sincere regards.

Yours

vocaldente