A cappella festival in Dortmund

Het gebeurt niet al te vaak dat ik iets schrijf voor BALK, dus als ik dan weer een keer een recensie schrijf, dan moet je 'm wel lezen natuurlijk!

---Klik hier---

Rock4 recensie

Eindelijk weer eens wat activiteit op a cappella gebied: Ik heb een recensie geschreven voor BALK over de nieuwste cd van Rock4. Je vindt de recensie hier.

Half Past Nine - Culturele Zondag Enschede

30 weken - Het laatste echte concert

Dit weekend staat er een a cappella kerstconcert op ons programma in Münster, van Maybebop. Een jaar geleden heb ik al kaartjes gekocht, en ik kijk er al weken naar uit. Het weer is ook helemaal in kerststemming, overal ligt een dikke laag sneeuw. Gelukkig kunnen we een auto met winterbanden lenen, wat wel heel erg belangrijk blijkt te zijn. Op de hoofdwegen is er weinig aan de hand, maar in Münster zelf lijkt men vergeten te zijn dat er zoiets bestaat als strooiwagens en sneeuwschuivers. Er is niks, maar dan ook echt helemaal niks gedaan met de sneeuw en de wegen zijn spekglad. We rijden er over een flinke laag aangestampte sneeuw. Münster heeft veel stoplichten en op de heenweg is het ook nog eens erg druk met verkeer. Bij elke keer optrekken glijden er auto's weg en soms blijft er eentje steken. Zelfs met winterbanden is het ploeteren. We zijn blij als "onze" auto uiteindelijk veilig op een dikbesneeuwde parkeerplaats bij de concerthal staat.
De afgelopen jaren hebben we heel wat a cappella concerten bezocht, en het is toch wel een vreemd gevoel te beseffen dat dit het allerlaatste concert is waarbij we nog gemakkelijk samen van huis kunnen. De volgende keer zal sowieso een tijdje op zich laten wachten. Na afloop blijven we nog even nakletsen en nemen we afscheid van de mannen, die hun Nederlandse fans alweer herkend hadden :)
Geen idee wanneer we ze weer zullen zien!

Nog een paar meer foto's vind je hier.

VPS KeK and PITS

Maybe I've shown you the following movie some weeks ago: 


PITS en KeK in concert from Rogier IJmker on Vimeo.

This is the result video which I shot during the festival and is finally online now:

VPS KeK - Root Beer Rag

25 weken - Ik zing twee-stemmig :)

Na een dagje ziek thuis te hebben gezeten met keelpijn en hoofdpijn, was het tijd voor het Totaal Vokaal Festival Oost van BALK, in Ulft. Ziek of niet ziek, ik moest erbij zijn. Gelukkig was ik redelijk opgeknapt na het dagje rust en hebben we een hele leuke dag gehad in Ulft. Lekker gezongen met Half Past Nine en gefilmd bij The Essence, Amusing en VPS KeK. Binnenkort op Youtube natuurlijk!

Ontzettend veel leuke reacties heb ik gekregen op mijn kleding. Natuurlijk van bekenden, maar ook veel onbekenden die me aanschoten en zeiden hoe leuk ze het vonden. En natuurlijk de vraag, hoe ik aan zo'n buikband kom. Nou, gewoon hier :) Zelfs een eigen ontwerp heb je in 1 dag al in huis! Super website, super service!

Ook nog even 'en profil':

Aan het einde van de lange dag was ik behoorlijk gebroken, maar ondanks dat had ik het niet willen missen!

29 years and 20 weeks ;)

Last Thursday it was my birthday, but I didn't celebrate it that day. I had to work, and in the evening I was singing with my choir. On Saturday our parents and brother and sisters came by and we celebrated my birthday with a delicious lunch. The weather was so good, we could even sit outside in the garden! I can't remember such nice weather on my birthday before.


One of the presents I got, is a CD with baby a cappella music called "Little voices". It's a CD with pure all vocal, classical music for bedtime, sung by the Swingle Singers. After my family had left, I was quite tired and when listening to the CD I fell asleep during the third song, so I think the CD also works for tired mama's-to-be ;)


In the evening we drove to Oss, to attend a Rock4 concert in our favorite theater De Lievekamp. We had front row seats. I loved the show, especially because it was even better than last time. I think ever since Peter and LucN were replaced by Lucas and Harry the group needed some time to grow closer, vocally. I really enjoyed it, and afterwards we had a chat with Luc and Harry for a while. We got home after 1am, which is way after my normal bedtime looking at the past four months. But I had a great birthday!


The coming week we have an appointment with the midwife and we have to go to the hospital to have the 20 weeks ultrasound. We're halfway!

KeK-weekend

This weekend VPS KeK had to perform twice. Of course, I came along to make pictures, and to capture audio and video material. Don't ask me if they sang okay, because I was quite busy operating the three different devices (photo camera, video camera and sound recorder). But, as far as I can judge their performance, it was great. The audience was really enthusiastic and so were the guys themselves.

This summer all the audio and video material will be used to make a cool movie of the group, which will hopefully lead to some nice bookings. All I am now waiting for, is my own hoody with "vps KeK crew" on it ;-)

Drienerlalala

Back in March I made some recordings for the vocal group Drienerlalala during the Dutch Festival for Vocal Ensembles in Almelo. Today I discovered the movies are online on YouTube, so if you like a cappella you should have a look. They don't sing every note in tune, but their subtle humor and the fun they have during the performance make them a group I always love to watch when I get the chance.

Pay attention to the persons in the back that are most left and most right at the end of the song. That's what I mean by "subtle humor"!


With the following song the group won the Harry Bannink Tribute Trophy.




Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Website VPS KeK online

One of the things that is keeping Martin busy these days is singing. Not only with his quintet Amusing, which has actually started to be more amusing in the past few months (which is a compliment really), but also with his still pretty new vocal group VPS KeK. Thanks to RJ the group now has its own website and I can recommend you to check it regularly, because they intend to upload new things all along: www.vpskek.nl!
(still Dutch only, but going to be translated into English later)

A neverending addiction?

I'm browsing the internet to find the best place to buy some a cappella cd's. I was hoping to find one online shop where I could find all the cd's that are on my wish list. Not that I would buy them all at once (I don't want to hurt my bank account too much all of a sudden), but just to know that I could buy them all at once (and by knowing, maybe I would buy them all anyway). But that shop doesn't exists, I guess. The European shops don't sell the American albums and vise-versa. And another 'problem' turns up: While searching, I discover more and more cd's I'd like to buy...
Maybe I should just start buying music on iTunes - it's probably a lot easier. But actually I prefer to hold a physical cd in my hands...
Anyone got tips? Advice? Group therapy?

Rock4 in Concert

It's been a while since I wrote a review for my website. I haven't visited that many concerts in the past months, due to... due to what actually? Maybe the fact Martin and I are both too occupied with other things (singing with VPS KeK, singing with Amusing, singing with Half Past Nine, you name it...) caused it. Anyway, to see Rock4 last Friday was definitely a good thing to do! And I even found time to write a review about it :D
The pictures are not that great, but considering I was sitting far, far away it's not that bad. So go check it out on my website and don't comment here, comment in my guestbook instead and make me happy ;)
By the way, I actually wrote two reviews. The second one is in Dutch and will be published on the website of BALK soon.

68

I'm updating my a cappella fansite. I will probably upload the newer version in another couple of days. Slowly my website is growing into a compilation of all the a cappella / vocal groups I know. Right now I've listed 68 groups on my website:

A'Cappella Expresss, Aquabella, Audiofeels, Basix, Basta, Bauchklang, The Bolyki Brothers, Boyz Nite Out, Cadence, Cash-n-go, Chapter 6, Cluster, Cosmos, D-Base, Echte Kerle, Flying Pickets, Fork, Füenf, 5 vor der Ehe, Gabbahey, HighFive, The House Jacks, The Idea of North, iNtrmzzo, JuiceBox, King's Singers, Klangbezirk, U-Bahn Kontrollöre, LaLeLu, The Magnets, Maybebop, Medlz, Montezuma's Revenge, M-Pact, Mundart, Musix, New York Voices, Ommm, Overboard, Overtone, Pust, Rajaton, The Real Group, Riltons Vänner, Rock4, Rockapella, 6-Zylinder, Shiva Knows, Sonos, Stimmrecht, Stouxingers, Straight No Chaser, Swingle Singers, Take6, The Glue, Tonalrausch, Vane, Velvet Voices, Viva Voce, Vocado, Vocaldente, Vocal Six, Voca People, Voice Male (USA), Voice Male (BE), Voices Unlimited, Waschkraft and Wise Guys.

Did I forget any significant others? (I probably did) Feel free to let me know :)

15. Sparkassen-A-Capella-Festival

Aaah, the fifteenth Sparkassen-A-Capella-Festival in Dortmund is coming up (May 23/24)! I don't know if we'll go there, but there'll definitely be a good chance. Here's the line-up:

Vor dem Start des Festivals schnuppern Newcomer große Festival-Luft: In diesem Jahr stehen who’s that? aus Köln auf der Bühne.
Die 6-Zylinder gehören schon viele Jahre zur ersten Garde der Vokalsembles. Mit ihrer neuen Show „Acapulco“ haben sie einmal mehr bekannte Popsongs, unbekanntes Liedgut und witzige Eigenkompositionen zusammengemischt: Also auf nach Acapulco, die Sonne putzen!
GANZ SCHÖN FEIST sind Grenzgänger zwischen Comedy und A-cappella: Popacappellacomedy nennen die drei Kleinkunstpreisträger ihr eigenes Genre. Ihre Programme sind schönstes Miteinander von Comedy, Musik und dreistimmigem Satzgesang.
High Five aus Offenburg begeistern ihre Zuhörer und Fans aller Altersklassen mit jugendlichem Charme, authentischem Auftreten und einer erfrischenden Musik.
BLISS (Schweiz) entstand 1999 spontan – und hat sich nach zahlreichen Auftritten zum festen Bestandteil der schweizerischen A-cappella- und Kulturszene entwickelt.
MundArt aus Leipzig stehen für "Voc'n'bass" und erobern als fünf selbsternannte Kreuzritter der Mundspagatdisziplin die Herzen der A-cappella-Fans.
Rockapella (USA): Die fünf Gesangs-Virtuosen sind Superstars in Amerika. Schließt man beim Zuhören die Augen, fällt es schwer zu glauben, dass die Musiker – allen voran der beste "Vocal Percussionist" der Welt, Jeff Thatcher – keine Instrumente benutzen!

Boring?

I still don't know the word 'boring'. The past week has been a good example of that. I decided I could write about it in this blog, which I hope to revive the coming time. With so many different things I do during the week, there should be enough to write about, right?
So here's an overview of last week:
Saturday Dutch Festival for Vocal Ensembles. I spent the complete day in Almelo, heard/saw many groups and filmed the performances of VPS KeK and Drienerlalala. Also loved Pur Sang, the Groove Factory, Dutchmen, Fem@il. Unfortunately I couldn't hear Hifive, who won the festival.
Sunday Started editing (cutting) video material (VPS KeK) and visited a concert of Amusing in the afternoon, which was fun. Filmed their performance as well. At night I can't sleep, my head is full of music. I decide I could make a teaser video for VPS KeK. Suddenly my mind is clear and I know exactly how I want it to be. After that I fall asleep.
Monday My day off from work. Thrilled about this review. Spent most of the day behind the computer, making a teaser video for VPS KeK. Making the video was pretty simple and I finished it a lot sooner than I expected. To read the comments on Facebook was a lot of fun and I kept checking their brand new Facebook page and saw the amount of fans grow. In between I cleaned the bathroom.... housekeeping..... *sigh*.

Tuesday Looong day at work. I started at 8.30. First I wrote an evaluation report for one of 'my' kids, then I installed the printer, that's been waiting to be installed for over a year, on the kids computer, and installed some plugins (finally we can watch YouTube on the old thing!) and watched this video with them. The rest of the afternoon I worked with the kids as usual. I had dinner at work, because I had to do a presentation in the evening and traveling home and back again takes too much time. I was pretty nervous for the presentation, which I shouldn't have been because all went well. Got home at 22.30, tired but satisfied.
Wednesday Another day at work. In the morning there was a social skills training with the kids. In the afternoon an evaluation with my trainee and her teacher from school. In the evening I was more than tired and did nothing but checking mail, facebook and cutting some videos (Drienerlalala).
Thursday Partyday. Followed workshops djembe and salsa with my colleagues. Despite the enormous cost reduction my organization is facing there's money to pay this.... Loved the workshops though ;) Normally Thursday night is choir rehearsal night, but it got canceled because of our director being ill. So instead I redesigned the website for VPS KeK. Always nice to do some designing with Photoshop.
Friday A very normal day at work which ended with frustration because the computer system we use is so damn stupid!! After a year, I still can't use it without facing problems. The interface is the most customer unfriendly I've ever seen.

And now? Friday night... I'm waiting to get hungry. Then, I'll do some cooking and  tonight will probably be filled with more webdesign, or video editing, or maybe we'll watch a movie in our home cinema (we haven't even done that yet this week!). Or I'll write another blog post, about music, computers, websites, something like that. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I chose the right profession. On the other hand, when my job would be filled with music, computers, video editing, webdesign, my life would get boring, wouldn't it? Working with my kids gives me the perfect variation I like.

Let's see if my honey is getting hungry. He's upstairs right now. Cutting video material ;-) And I can hear him singing.
*sigh. I love my life*
Maybe he'll even cook today?

Join the Real Community

With Facebook as a main tool to communicate with friends and stay up to date with lots of people and vocal groups around the world, this blog is slowly becoming unnecessary. My main interest at the moment is expanding my 'a cappella collection', by finding and listening to new vocal groups.

The scope of content at Facebook is growing enormously, and an attempt to do networking there, in a qualitative manner, easily disappears in the everyday flow of info about people's various activities.

So, what I need, is a site with a focus on one field of human activity: the world of vocal music. The Real Group launched a website for this purpose only and I'd like to invite all my friends in the vocal world to join this community.

Maybe, one day, Facebook will become unnecessary for me as well. And so we move on, and move on, and move on, and move on.

Borkum

And because all good things come in three: I've written another review for my website. The last one for this season. It's a review from our trip to the island Borkum which included a Wise Guys concert. Apart from the concert, we had a wonderful weekend on the island with sun, sea and beach.

Balve

I've just uploaded a new review on my website. This time an English one, describing the concert from Vocaldente in a cave in Balve (Germany) last Saturday. It's less detailed than usual, but I don't think it's short. Somehow I am not able to write short reviews. But I can write short blog posts! -end-

Dortmund

Endlich ist es da, mein Bericht vom A Cappella Festival in Dortmund zu Pfingsten! Ich weiß übrigens nicht, ob ich nochmals ein so langer Bericht auf Deutsch schreiben werde. Pfffff.... das hat Stunden gedauert! Hahahaha. Wäre schön, wenn ein paar Leute es lesen würden und mir davon berichten, ob dass es gut ist ;)