2011 - the 30-year-anniversary of the legendary Vollenweider-sound!
An audience of world citizens!
It is a well known drama: live appearences of Andreas Vollenweider & Friends are very rare! This has motivated people from all over the world, all of Europe, Asia, the US, South Africa, Nigeria... to travel to Switzerland to attend this very special event. Everyone of the highly enthusiastic audience has a long standing history with this particular music, a reason why the entire evening transformed into a family gathering and a soothing bath in the sound of
"The Dancing with the Lion - Orchestra"
Andreas Vollenweider; var. harps, vocals, ethnic wind instruments
Walter Keiser; drums
Andi Pupato; percussion, samplers & loops
Stefanie Peter (Steff la Cheffe); human beatbox, vocals, percussion
Daniel Kueffer; saxes, bass clarinet, whistles, keyboards, vocals
Sandro Friedrich; exotic wind instruments
Greg Galli; keyboards, vocals, accordion
Oliver Keller; guitars
Daniel Pezzotti; cello
Casper Obro; live drawing (interactive light-art & projections)
From the legendary luscious and dynamic patterns of sound to subtil whispers of charismatic solos and duets, not one of the fantastic musicians of the band has ever come even close to a limit. Some of them were part of this music since its beginning, like Walter Keiser, heartbeat of the music of 1980 as well as Stefanie Peter (Steff la Cheffe), the young female rapper (23), on human beatbox and vocals, who wasn't even born when it all began. Several generations making music together in such a natural and flowing way have exposed fascinating evidence; the timelessness of this world of sound. The seamless blending of physical and hypnotic grooves of long time percussionist Andi Pupato with the emotional melodic contributions of the cello by Daniel Pezzotti, who played on many of the albums, but has joined Andreas live on stage for the first time, have been stunning. The explosive intensity of Daniel Kueffer's sax-playing, has set the music "on fire", helping it to touch the earth from time to time. He has been a member of the Vollenweider-family for many years. The universe of sound of pianist and keyborder Greg Galli added truly orchestral depth and his solo parts were vibrantly contained. In the Grammy nominated song "Cor do Amor", which Andreas wrote with legendary Brazil singer-poet Milton Nascimento, Greg was using his beautifully airy voice. Oliver Keller, father-figure of an extensive family of string instruments, with a variety of guitars, including lapsteel, dobro, mandoline, sitar-guitar a.m.m., joined the band just recently, but has quickly found his way into the music as if he would have always been a natural element of this soundscape. Like Daniel Pezzotti, Sandro Friedrich has left his musical traces on many Vollenweider-albums, but became part of a live concert experience for the first time. For many, who were wondering about the origin of some of the exotic sounds on the albums all these years, it must have been an interesting moment, when Sandro "revealed his secrets" on stage: Armenian duduk, shalmaj, crumhorn, kena, bansuri, shakuhachi... Casper Obro, the young Danish artist and designer has created an extra dimension on stage with his "interactive light-painting". Thanks to innovative technology he followed the music with his painted figures, objects and patterns by drawing onto a digital canvas, which was then projected to the stage backdrop.
This unique concert experience will certainly remain unforgettable for both Andreas and his musician-friends, as well as for the guest-friends and we hope, that the "Dancing with the Lion-Orchestra" is going to travel the world very soon, to share the experience with as many people as possible... The AVAF organisation is already setting the sails for the anniversary-project and will let you know as soon as there is more information.
History of a historic concert:
Originally, it was going to be just a small concert in a beautiful setting, when Gusti Schoenbaechler introduced his idea to his old friend Andreas. He liked the idea so much, that it grew to a spectacular concert event within a very short time, including TV shooting and audio recording. A release of the recordings has not yet been scheduled.
