Newsletter Archive

Hello dear friends of vocaldente,

whoohoo! - the "tchaka" (everyone who already heard our new show will know what this means...) has taken effect - huge effect:

We won the 1st prize at one of the most important international competitions, the renowned TAMPEREEN SÄVEL in the Finnish town of Tampere, and we're incredibly happy about this.

Successfully facing up to the international competition of 14 top-class groups from six countries (ensembles with and without microphones were participating with repertoires reaching from classical folk music and experimental avantgarde to acapella pop), and triumphing in front of a jury consisting of members of The Hilliard Ensemble, The Real Group, Rajaton and others makes us extremely proud. And you can share this feeling! In past years, the first prize always had to be shared between two contestants because the jury could never agree on one distinct winner, however, the top prize was only awarded once this year:

"... The Jury of the competition took a long time to decide the other prizes but the winner was clear from the start ... the ensemble of five male singers was a clear number one at the competition ... 'vocaldente was convincing with the wholeness of the performance and their ability to express music in their own style', John Potter" (Chairperson of the jury and ex-The Hilliard Ensemble, in the "Tampere Aamulehti" paper): PRESS PACK

All the current popular vocal and a capella ensembles of the "younger generation", such as Rajaton, Amarcord, Singer Pur and the Calmus Ensemble, have claimed victory in Tampere. To be voted into such company is a huge honour for us - albeit also an obligation to work as hard as ever and hone our skills, and to give many more concerts (because, we can tell you this much, this won't the last contest we're participating in this year).

In the tradition of recent years' winning ensembles giving their own concerts, we will perform a full night's concert as part of the next TAMPEREEN SÄVEL in 2009. Furthermore, we were also officially invited on a tour and to festivals in Taiwan and possibly others next year. Banzai!!

Further information on the TAMPEREEN SÄVEL, on our competition entry and the criteria of evaluation, and on top of that many up-to-date photos can be found here: NEWS

But enough self-adulation! As we've haven't given any sign of life in a while (shame on us, but we had to practise...), maybe not all of you know that our new single "...dann ist Sommer" has been out for 2 months! Featured on it: "Juegalo" and the "Sommersong" (also available as a karaoke version with sheet music), the ultimate summer hit! Okay, to be precise: our ultimate summer hit, or to be even more precise: our potential summer hit, for it hasn't made it into the charts yet sadly... but dreaming can't hurt, can it... ;-) You can find some samples here under MUSIC, and of course you can order it: "€5,- and it's yours!" (at such a great price as well! ;-) ) CD SHOP

Apart from this, we've been on the move a lot, found new audiences and new friends, and really had plenty of fun in the past months. After the German tour in March and the two concerts at the Waldorf School in Hannover (where we introduced Tobi as a new vocaldente member), we contributed concerts to the opening of the annual Bundesgartenschau, the national garden show in Gera/Ronneburg, took part in another great a capella festival in Switzerland called A Capella Festival Pfäffikon SZ near Zürich - and ended up facing extra passport control, when Johnny stalled our tour bus right in front of the toll bar (the frontier officer: "Yes, you've aroused suspicion!").

In the upcoming weeks, a couple of gala performances are on the schedule; inbetween we're making flying visits to the region around Heidelberg (Mosbach amongst others), by the end of July we'll be in Graz (Austria), and in August it's finally time for our well deserved summer break to refuel, because the second half of the year will continue at full throttle! But all this and many more details are to be found on our homepage. It's always worth popping in for a quick informational ''splash 'n' dash". LIVE

And eventually a big thank you for all your support in the last months and weeks, and the numerous positive yet also constructively critical voices encouraging and inciting us to practise, practise and practise... and which all eventually contributed to this success in Tampere.

Until next time, a happy summer time for all of you, with fantastic holidays and

best wishes,

yours

vocaldente (tchaka!!)