Saturday at German Fest

Saturday at German Fest was an action packed day. Saturday is parade day and it was great to just stand under a shade tree with the lake breeze, watching all the groups parade past. I checked out some of the shops. And on the left you can see that Willy of the Sandlers was busy with his beautiful mouthblown glassware. He truly has some one of a kind items. He and his wife, Regina, took time with each customer and proud to explain how these lovely items are made.

I went to see an old favorite, the Johnny Hoffmann band. I was happy to see that Rick's (he plays the sax) daughter did a few songs with Kevin, their lead singer. This band has been around a long time, but always brings new life to the band. Each musical selection was perfect, these guys just don't make mistakes. They will always be one of my favorites and it just would not be German Fest without them!!!

We started our day with our traditional Saturday morning visit to the Konditorei and had some lovely tortes. The best part is when old friends come by and we can catch up on what has been happening in their lives since we last saw them.

Take a look at the slide show below. One of my favorites is the guys with the "prost" sunglasses.

Friday at German Fest in Milwaukee

Friday at German Fest was jam packed with fun. The visitors were very enthusiastic about Styrina's show. Styrina has beautiful long blond hair as you can see from the photo to the left. So I asked her to take a spin.

Styrina has a great mix of both Volksmusik and Schlager. She had people "schunkling" (which I call the German Arobics) and she came off stage, got up on the bleachers in the audience and interacted with the people while she was singing. This is her first time to the Milwaukee German Fest and there are many people who are hoping this will not be her last.

The Sandlers played most of the afternoon and enjoyed singing to the crowd that kept growing. As people walked by and heard the great sound that these muscians produced, they were just drawn in like a magnet. There were a lot of people who had become fans from years before and were very happy to see that the Sandlers had a new CD to offer. Willy, the lead singer, led a polanaise and got everyone on their feet. Willy is also an accomplished glass blower and if you had time to explore the shops you may have seen some the detailed glass items he & his wife had for sale there.

If you are looking to download some of the pictures in the Slide show below, just click on View all Images. It will take you to the slide show website and you just need to right click and download the picture you like. And... it's all FREE.

Thursday at German Fest

Milwaukee's German Fest opened last night and the crowd was treated to FREE admission and fabulous entertainment. The Widderstein Buaba/Oberallgau Musikanten are a fantastic show band and had everyone hopping to the newest music in the Volksmusik scene and a lot of old favorites as well. Hans (Big John) is pictured to the left; he really gets into his music. The program said Widderstein Buaba, but this is a combination of 2 bands: Widdersteiner and Oberallgau Musikanten for when they play big festivals. They seemed to get their own groupees before long and if you would like to sign the Widderstiner guestbook or/and Oberallgau Musikanten guestbook to let them know how much you enjoyed their performance click on the guestbook links above.

Styrina from Austria is the headliner at German Fest this year and had the crowd (especially the men) mesmerized. Her long beautiful blond hair had trouble keeping up with her as she flew around the stage. We saw this talented singer during our Bus Tour in Austria and there is a short video of Styrina in the side bar on the left. Styrina is a beautiful young woman, but she has been on stage for many years. A friend of mine brought a tape of her from when she was only 12 years old.

The Sandlers, who I often refer to as the "red shirts", had the people on their feet and dancing. Peter, who is the leader of the band, was also our tour guide when we were on our bus tour in May. He was a great tour guide, but he is a fantastic muscian. He brought 4 talented muscians with him and we are so grateful that they were at our house entertaining our guests. We are proud to say that they have also become very good friends of ours.

Pre-German Fest Party

We had a great time giving a Welcome party for the Sandlers, last night. They will be playing German Fest all weekend. When Peter generously offered his band to play, I quickly said YES! It was a great feeling to have the Sandlers play in "my" backyard. Click Here to go to a link where our son, Tim, took a few pictures and even some short videos.

We were also treated to Milwaukee' s own Peggy Mueller, who played a few songs with Peter and, of course, Hansi on the spoons. There were even some sing-a-long moments. These musicians gave everyone a glimpse of the fine music that there will be a German Fest this weekend. Styrina was also there and she enjoyed getting to know some of our guests better before the big weekend.

Thanks to all our friends who brought delicious food and drinks and for helping us give this party for these talented muscians. It is a party that we will always remember. The evening got us all in the mood to have a good time at German Fest this weekend that will be filled with good music (like we heard this night), good food and a wonderful time spent with old friends. Later in the evening the Widdersteiner (Oberallgau Musikanten) band arrived and we all had the opportunity to get to know them better.

Springtime in Germany

We spent 2 wonderful weeks in May on a fabulous Bus Tour of Austria, Slovinia, Czech Repulic and Germany. The trip was organized by Gisela Lewis of Special Event Consultant, LLC and Peter Matthai, who is the leader of the Sandler. Peter's band performs any many German events along the East coast, Florida, Canada and Milwaukee's German Fest.

I have put some of my favorite pictures of the trip that include great scenery and having fun with our new friends in the slide show below. However, I will have a separate posting of just pictures of the entertainers we saw during those 2 weeks. After all it was a Reise mit Musik!

The trip started in Austria with stay at the beautiful Hotel Donauschlinge on the shores of the Danube. The view from our room was breathtaking. The food was so delicious at EVERY meal. It was really fun when we decided that for lunch we would go to a Konteterei and just eat Tortes. And we had our first Salzburger Nockerln, it was fantastic. We will definitely be having that again.

We visited such well know places in Austria such as Vienna, Grinzing (sampling the Heurigen) , and Linz. We had a day in Passau and a ride through the Bavarian forest with a stop at the Joskas Crystal world. The trip also went into Slovenia with a visit to the Slavko Avsenik museum & fest hall where we listened to Oberkrainer music, drank Slibowitz and enjoyed watching a tour group of almost all ladies who came from Russia.

But most of all it was a great group of people that we spent those two weeks with. We immediately found that we shared a love of German music and just plain having fun. If you get the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung then you have already read the articles published about this trip. Our friends, Otto & Sieglinde, wrote that detailed account of this trip. I loved reading their articles because it was almost like reliving it all over again and they had details that I had already forgotten. We met this talented couple several years ago on one of Ted Hierl's German Radio Cruises. We are all looking forward to the next one in May 2010.

Gisela & Peter are already getting plans together for next year's trip. So if you see either one of them at German Fest ask them about what destinations are in the works for next year. As soon as I get some details I will be making a post here and letting you know how to sign up.

We went on 3 boat trips, one on the Danube River, the Worthersee, and the Wachau. The trip on the Danube was private and only with our group while 2 musicians accompanied us on the whole trip. We toured the Schoenbrunn castle in Vienna, famous Melk, and saw breathtaking vistas upon the top of the Grossglockner (Austria's highest mountain).

We had music every day. If we were not at a fest enjoying a fine blaskappelle, we were being entertained after dinner at our hotel or enjoying country music Czech style. On the last day of our tour we went to the 125th Stiftungs fest of the Musikkapelle Neubeuern just minutes from our hotel. We were amazed at how many people showed up at this little Bavarian town's celebration. It was a week night and there were about 2,000 people in the large tent. I would estimate that at least 80% of the people were dressed in tracht; including this adorable little guy featured on the right. The slide show has several pictures of when the keg was tapped and of course a hardy "PROST" rang out after that!


It was truly a reise Mit Musik !!!

Lisa Holzmann is Finalist in Kinder Grand Prix

Lisa Holzmann, who is the daughter of Josef Holzmann, is a finalist in the Kinder Grand Prix that is being held on July 11. We reported a few month ago that Lisa Holzmann was competing on the well known German TV show, Krone der Volksmusik, singing My Boy Lolliepop and asked our German readers to vote for this very talented young girl. As previously stated, Lisa's father, Josef Holzmann, was at Armin Homann's German Music Festival in Lake Villa last year.

For more info about the Kinder Grand Prix, go to Anneliese Breitenberger's website at: http://www.gpvolksmusiksuedtirol.it/ge/content.asp?CID=10008%2C10060 Lisa will be singing a song composed by the famous Gunther Behrle. Gunther Behrle is most famous for his hit, Patrona Bavarea and most recently last year's hit for Vincent & Fernando, Glaube an Gott. Lisa will be sining, Immer nur die Mailbox. We wish this very talented teenager success on July 11 when she competes in Sud Tirol.

Toi, Toi, Toi.

Back from Hawaii

Although I have been back from Ted Hierl's cruise to Hawaii aboard the Golden Princess for a few weeks, I finally got my pictures organized. At the bottom of this posting, I have a short slideshow with a sampling of what we saw & did on the cruise. But to see all the pictures and you will go to the Hawaii Cruise page. There are 3 slideshows and instructions of how to download pictures to your computer for free.

Reiner Kirsten put on some great shows. This Schwarzwald native warmed up the audience with some old favorites and introduced them to his new hits. Reiner mingled with the people on the cruise even when he was not performing and soon when you heard him say "Hallo Freunde" there was someone else saying "Hallo Reiner".

The Elstertaler, led by Wolfgang Semmler, again provided 2 show nights of dance music. However one of the highlights was when Semmi sang to his lovely wife, Ilona. He changed the words to the song to address their 12 years together and this year they were married. The Elstertaler really had the place jumping and you can see why Ted Hierl invites them back each year. Andre is a very talented singer and knows what the crowd wants to hear. They also brought with them some of the new hits in Germany and had everyone up on their feet. One morning, Tomas, on the keyboard, joined us for breakfast with this family. Tomas also plays in the new band that accompanies Stefan Mross and it was very interesting getting some inside stories from him.

We were lucky to have a great table of 6 other people to sit with at dinner time. Our table was very mixed with each couple coming from a different state: California, Minnesota, Rhode Island and, of course, Wisconsin. It was fun to hear what everyone had done throughout the day and some of them had some interesting adventures mixing with the locals. There was a table of people from Milwaukee and it was nice to see familiar faces on the cruise as well.

Ted Hierl and his lovely wife, Hilde, deserve a great big thank you for spending countless hours putting together this cruise. There were over 360 people in our group and 88 of them came from Germany. Hilde did all the coordinating and translating that was needed to make things go smoothly. Ted announced that next year's cruise will be going to the Southern Caribbean with the Original Naabtal Duo as the star guests. I have created a new Cruise page with all the details and you can get there by pressing this button . If you want to see the Naabtal Duo in action there are a bunch of links to YouTube so you can get familiar with their music. I will be putting a direct link along the left sidebar of the webpage soon, so if you are thinking of going next year call & reserve your cabin before they are filled up. Please note that if you click on Ted & Hilde's picture you will go to Ted's Webpage where you can listen to his 2 hours Sunday Radio show all week.

Saturday at German Fest

Saturday at German Fest is always party night and everywhere you looked the party was going strong. In the morning, Edith Prock, was on our local TV and you can see some of those pictures along with others taken if you click HERE. The link will take you to webshots into the Saturday German Fest album. This year there was a live Tarzen in the culture tent representing the famous German-American, Johnny Weissmueller, and there are pictures that you can see if you click HERE.

It was also parade day. There were many, many local German groups participating in the parade and even some of the German stars were invited to be in the parade. The weather was absolutely perfect and we alll had a great "party" yesterday.

Oliver Thomas News

I just got this e-mail from famous German Singer, Oliver Thomas. He has a new hit and wants everyone to know how they can get it. This e-mail has a lot of great links and info, however, it is all in German.


Aktuelles von Oliver Thomas .15.05.2008

DIE AKTUELLE SINGLE

....geht ab wie eine Rakete!

VÖ: 10.03.2008 (Promo-Single) Genre: Schlager Koch Universal Music
SI-CD - Art.-Nr.: P00455 M: Jean Frankfurter, T: Bernd Meinunger, V: montana, LC 11936

Der Countdown läuft, die Rakete ist gezündet…
„Du gehst ab wie eine Rakete“ - vorm Radio, auf der Tanzfläche, beim Konzert, bei der Party, vorm Fernseher, im Auto, ja sogar im Büro…!
Die neue Single hat es in sich, der Titel „Du gehst ab wie eine Rakete“ macht vor nichts halt und verbreitet überall schlagartig Raketenstimmung und gute Laune! Bei den Live-Auftritten in Konzerthallen und sogar in Tanzpalästen ist der Titel jetzt schon die Nummer 1 beim Publikum und beweist Hitqualität.
Oliver Thomas hat den Zünder für jede Party…

Jetzt die neue Single bestellen bei: http://www.musicload.de/

Hol dir jetzt den neuen TanzMix für deine Party! Raketenstimmung garantiert!


Der neue OT-Promotionbereich

Unser neuer Service, nur für DJs sowie Radio- und TV-Redakteure! Hörbeispiele, Cover und exklusive Titel-Downloads: http://www.promo.oliver-thomas.de/

Bitte Passwort anfordern unter promotion@oliver-thomas.de (Name, Sender usw. angeben)

TV-Termine
22.06.2008 NDR 17:00 Uhr Bingo
06.07.2008 ZDF 11:00 Uhr ZDF Fernsehgarten
03.08.2008 ARD 10:00 Uhr Immer wieder Sonntags
06.08.2008 SF1 20:05 Uhr Open Air Flumserberg
In Vorbereitung: Willkommen bei Carmen Nebel

(weitere TV-Termine in Planung! Änderungen vorbehalten. Alle Angaben ohne Gewähr)

Short-News

- “Rakete” auf Platz 32 in den nationalen DJ-Charts www.bvd-ev.de (BVD bemustert)
- Oliver Thomas und seine “Rakete” bei Smago.de www.smago.de
- Schlager der Woche bei Hithaus hithaus.dcrs-online.com
- Die “Rakete” gehört inzwischen zu den www.mallorca-megahits.de (auf Platz 9)
- Seit Wochen Platz 1 der Charts auf www.mallorcakoenig.de
- Die Fangemeinde wächst stetig, z.B. auf www.myspace.com/oliverthomasmusik
- Immer aktuell informiert mit dem Oliver Thomas Newsletter www.oliver-thomas.de

Weitere Infos auf der offiziellen Homepage:

http://www.oliver-thomas.de/

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