CASA - the contemporary a cappella society - Aahus Vocal Festival: Day 2

Aahus Vocal Festival: Day 2

Written by Bill Hare

Saturday, 13 May 2006

This week, CASA's Bill Hare is attending the Aarhus Vocal Festival in Aarhus, Denmark from May 11-14, 2006. The festival includes concerts from groups: The Real Group, Rajaton, baSix, Vocal Line, Touche, VoxNorth and Vocappella. There will also be workshops, coachings, competitions, and lectures. Bill will be sending back daily reports to us here at CASA.org. So join us for DAY 2 of the 2006 Aarhus Vocal Festival!

Things got off to a great start today - food is included in the festival price (about $180 US) which is nice because it keeps everyone together in a community instead of going out to "forage"!
Sanna, Pelle, and Lena from the Swedish group reSOUND! take advantage of the Danish sunshine! reSOUND! was formerly known as VeryEight for those of you who follow European A Cappella.
Hans Cassa of Montezuma's Revenge from Holland, confers with Joakim Skog of reSound! reSOUND! is doing one of Hans' arrangements, so they did a quick "picnic table clinic"! (video here)
After lunch, 6 concerts in 3 hours!! Starting on the small stage we had Germany's Niniwe, a powerful, haunting blend of 4 female voices.
Next up was Denmark's Rockkoret
Two giants of the Vocal World - Italy's Andrea Figallo and Dr. Matthias Becker from Germany. Andrea is CASA's Ambassador for Italy, by the way!
First view of the "medium" stage - Vox11, from Denmark, had just performed (not pictured) and Holland's Just Us takes the stage.
Back in the small hall (known as the "Ridehuset", where they used to train horses), Korinord performs, yet another Danish group!
At the same time, on the medium stage, another local Aarhus group performs - Can't Help It.
In a clinic with Matthias Becker, reSOUND! gets some tips while Just Us looks on.
A beautiful Aarhus day by the river!
Inside the huge lobby of beautiful Aarhus Musikhuset!
The "Medium" stage is tucked off in one corner of this wonderful building.
As promised, now we get to see the "Big" stage for the first time, from balcony level. Since the event is sold out, I get to be up in the nosebleed section, but everything still sounds awesome up here!
Using telephoto, we see Vocal Line, from right here in Aarhus, about to perform. (Video here!)
The Real Group. 5 voices. The rest is some sort of magic!
They put on a spectacular show...
...and especially enjoyed performing tonight knowing that a large percentage of the audience are fellow singers! Nearly all of the 1588 seats in the hall were filled! (Video Here!)
The afterglow tradition is pretty much the same everywhere! After the show, Aquijazz, a group from Portugal, thank Peter and Anders from the Real Group by serenading them. They join in, of course, in true afterglow tradition!
Then the after-afterparty... another A Cappella tradition! Here I am with Andrea Figallo...
...and a rather stunned-looking Peder Karlsson of The Real Group (the flash wouldn't go off, so this was try #7 or something!)