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Performances include: Pertisau (Tirol),
WDR Funkhaus Europa (radio station), Hessisches Staatstheater (state
theater) Wiesbaden, World Youth Day, Cologne Dance and Theater Award,
"Roncalli's Winterdreams" (circus show), Industrial Culture
Night (Herten), Tollwood Festival (Munich), Alphorn in Concert Festival
(Switzerland).
Press: When the Alphorn does the Samba
and the Waltz.
Alpcologne Astounds at the Kulturbunker with their Jazzy Alphorn
Arrangements.
... As the doors opened, the deep, rich sound
aroma unfolded in the concert hall - and in the bellies of the audience.
At the "Klangprobe live" (English: "Soundsample Live"),
Alpcologne demonstrated that one can do a whole lot more with the
3.5-meter-long instruments than alpine herder A signaling that alpine
herder B wants to drive his cows into the valley.
As traditional as the start of the concert
was, that's how amazing the rest of the evening was. Before tonight,
Tango, "Watschen Waltz," or a Samba medley had surely
seldom been coaxed out of an alphorn. Arranger Mitch Höhler
and his musicians elicited melodies from the otherwise dreamy giant
instruments that were so varied, that it's hard to imagine that
the horns have to rely on natural notes. Even "Anton's Ska"
is possible, to which musician ebasa says that "it's the only
version of 'Anton aus Tirol' that I'm willing to play on a stage."
Alpcologne is completed by singer Victoria Riccio. The Italo-American
vocalist swung with a clear, powerful voice and made plain to every
last listener that a totally new alphorn sound was created here:
jazzy, groovy, joyous, offbeat - and experimental. Because the musicians
scratched on their horns with their hands, produced quirky sounds
using their mouthpieces, or smacked their lips in the horns.
In addition to these "expert oddities," Alpcologne astounded
with the unexpected, harmonious combination of the horns with other
instruments, such as recorder (!) or sousaphone. Whoever thought
that alphorns were only entitled to exist alongside "alporigines,"
edelweiss or at best in Volksmusik shows, now know better - thanks
to Alpcologne. In this form, the instrument has definitely arrived
in the here and now.
(Concert Critique from the Kölner
Stadt-Anzeiger Newspaper)
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