Halle (DE) - 100 Jahre Händel Festspiele
„Music in one way or another remains a constant and – like a good friend –
sticks around, no matter what.“
After almost two years we finally had the chance to play our beloved Händel-programme at the Händel-Festspiele in Halle. I got back from Los Angeles one week before our first rehearsals in Vienna giving me enough time to get over my jetlag and gather my strength for ‘our’ Händel. We arrived in Halle a day before our concert, so we had plenty of time to explore the city and walk around town. We discovered the Händel-Haus, an amazing Thai food place and a Bio-restaurant serving great veggie lasagna : ). Our venue blew our minds, an old church that was renovated and turned into a concert hall hosting many, many different cross-over artists throughout the festival years – 100 festival years of Händel-Festspiele!!!
I still remember when out of the blue in 2019 the Händel-Festival contacted me, asking if we would be interested in creating a Händel programme for June 2020. At first I wasn’t sure but on the other hand, I simply couldn’t let this chance to dive into the world of baroque music pass me by. So I sat down with mathias to tell him that I wanted to accept the Händel offer, but at the same time, undertaking this change of epoch, to also change the line-up of what had been our band for the Kunstlied adaptions over the past 7 years. He agreed to stay on board as arranger for this programme and started arranging almost immediately for Tobias Faulhammer on guitar, Gregor Aufmesser on bass, Dominik Fuss on trumpet and flugelhorn and me on vocals and flutes. An intimate line up very much in the sense of baroque music. We were in the middle of working and getting to know the repertoire and mathias’ beautiful arrangements during our first rehearsals, when in March 2020 the lockdown due to the Covid19-pandemic changed the whole world. The premiere in Halle was canceled and pushed to 2022 as were all the concerts planned for our Händel programme. I used the time to submit many, many applications for funding and financial support. We were lucky – and Pro Helvetia in Switzerland and the Austrian Musikfonds offered financial help. Thanks to the Austrian Musikfonds that funded us once 8 years ago for my first album gone too far in 2012, we were able to go into the studio to make this album. In five days in June 2020 we recorded 22 arias & songs of which 17 made it onto the album. And now here we are, finally, playing ‚Sing My Soul‘ at the festival that started it all. We had the most wonderful time and it felt like our journey through Händel's world had come full circle together with an incredible audience who were with us from the first note 💛! Thanks to all the helping hands who took care of us on and off stage from sound to light and light to sound!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to the Händel Festspiele and Women in Jazz for this cooperation. And Dominik, Tobi and Greg, it has been such a joy working with you on these arias and songs! Thank you so much for giving our Händel your all and bringing these arrangements to life – I sincerely hope we will keep on playing and playing 💛!
💛 Sing My Soul 💛
Yours Lia
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