Press-Telegram Special
Friday, April 19, 2002
Musical Cowbells in the Long Beach Arena
Substitute beer steins for the plastic bottles of designer water on the tables and there were moments Saturday night when you might have believed the Long Beach Arena had been transported directly to Munich.
The banners on the walls, actually signaling Ice Dogs hockey victories, could have been for the local soccer club, and the audience was enthusiastic as any beer-fueled Bavarian equivalent.
That was the idea, as the Long Beach Symphony Pops Orchestra and Principal Pops Conductor Michael Krajewski ended the Symphony's 2001-2002 season with "Oktoberfest in June."
The concert featured both the orchestra and the six-member Sonnenschein Express, a German-style folk band made up of six musicians whose regular gig is at the German Pavilion at Disney World's Epcot Center in Orlando. Sonnenschein is German for "sunshine" since the band is from the Sunshine State.
The music Sonnenschein Express played was German, Austrian and Swiss folk music, including original compositions in that style. Krajewski chose for the orchestra mostly Austrian pieces, and more than a few American selections from Austrian-inspired stories.
It was all light classical music and the kind of foot-stomping, knee-slapping music you'd hear in a beer hall, or at a wedding. The audience seemed to love it. By the end of the evening, there was polka dancing on the arena floor and even on the orchestra stand.
Krajewski began the evening with works by the Strauss family of Vienna: Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Die Fledermaus" overture and his father, Johann Sr.'s "Radetzky March," with its traditional audience clap-along. There was also a sparkling orchestral version of the "Clarinet Polka" and selections from that American musical set in Austria, "The Sound of Music," hardly German but guaranteed familiar.
The six members of the Sonnenschein Express, Martin Gross, the group's founder, Jim Buchman, Todd Campbell, Mark Goldberg, Hans Prettner and Daven Skrzynski, all came on stage in traditional lederhosen carrying a collection of genuine folk instruments that included a wooden xylophone, cowbells and 20-foot-long alphorns.
Together they proved to be excellent musicians and showmen, through their brief first-half appetizer to their real program.
That things were going to be very different in the concert's second half was signaled by Krajewski, who came out dressed in white tuxedo coat over lederhosen (with very attractive knees showing.) Krajewski conducted in that dress and later he came down from the podium and joined members of Sonnenschein in a foot-stomping, thigh slapping folk dance that look too complicated for brief rehearsal. What conducting school teaches Tyrollean folk dancing ?
After an orchestral rendition of Cole Porter's attempt at Viennese gemuetlichkeit, the waltz "Wunderbar," the two groups came together for a lot more hot German folk-style music. There was the frenetic and funny cowbell duet "Schneewalzer," a musical demonstration of the Alpine xylophone, also known as the wooden laughter and plenty of yodeling. Not only did the band yodel, they instructed the audience in yodeling and then found three volunteers from the audience for a free-style yodeling contest.
Gross also had each table link arms and sway to the "Ho la di" medley, a group of beer hall songs calling for audience participation. The swaying continued through "The Happy Wanderer" and the final encore, the "Rosamunde" polka (known in the United States as the "Beer Barrel Polka").
JOHN FARRELL -
Press-Telegram Special
Substitute beer steins for the plastic bottles of designer water on the tables and there were moments Saturday night when you might have believed the Long Beach Arena had been transported directly to Munich.
The banners on the walls, actually signaling Ice Dogs hockey victories, could have been for the local soccer club, and the audience was enthusiastic as any beer-fueled Bavarian equivalent.
That was the idea, as the Long Beach Symphony Pops Orchestra and Principal Pops Conductor Michael Krajewski ended the Symphony's 2001-2002 season with "Oktoberfest in June."
The concert featured both the orchestra and the six-member Sonnenschein Express, a German-style folk band made up of six musicians whose regular gig is at the German Pavilion at Disney World's Epcot Center in Orlando. Sonnenschein is German for "sunshine" since the band is from the Sunshine State.
The music Sonnenschein Express played was German, Austrian and Swiss folk music, including original compositions in that style. Krajewski chose for the orchestra mostly Austrian pieces, and more than a few American selections from Austrian-inspired stories.
It was all light classical music and the kind of foot-stomping, knee-slapping music you'd hear in a beer hall, or at a wedding. The audience seemed to love it. By the end of the evening, there was polka dancing on the arena floor and even on the orchestra stand.
Krajewski began the evening with works by the Strauss family of Vienna: Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Die Fledermaus" overture and his father, Johann Sr.'s "Radetzky March," with its traditional audience clap-along. There was also a sparkling orchestral version of the "Clarinet Polka" and selections from that American musical set in Austria, "The Sound of Music," hardly German but guaranteed familiar.
The six members of the Sonnenschein Express, Martin Gross, the group's founder, Jim Buchman, Todd Campbell, Mark Goldberg, Hans Prettner and Daven Skrzynski, all came on stage in traditional lederhosen carrying a collection of genuine folk instruments that included a wooden xylophone, cowbells and 20-foot-long alphorns.
Together they proved to be excellent musicians and showmen, through their brief first-half appetizer to their real program.
That things were going to be very different in the concert's second half was signaled by Krajewski, who came out dressed in white tuxedo coat over lederhosen (with very attractive knees showing.) Krajewski conducted in that dress and later he came down from the podium and joined members of Sonnenschein in a foot-stomping, thigh slapping folk dance that look too complicated for brief rehearsal. What conducting school teaches Tyrollean folk dancing ?
After an orchestral rendition of Cole Porter's attempt at Viennese gemuetlichkeit, the waltz "Wunderbar," the two groups came together for a lot more hot German folk-style music. There was the frenetic and funny cowbell duet "Schneewalzer," a musical demonstration of the Alpine xylophone, also known as the wooden laughter and plenty of yodeling. Not only did the band yodel, they instructed the audience in yodeling and then found three volunteers from the audience for a free-style yodeling contest.
Gross also had each table link arms and sway to the "Ho la di" medley, a group of beer hall songs calling for audience participation. The swaying continued through "The Happy Wanderer" and the final encore, the "Rosamunde" polka (known in the United States as the "Beer Barrel Polka").
JOHN FARRELL -
Press-Telegram Special
