Cocopelli children songs in orchestra robe

^{Children's Song Blog from February 24, 2020}

This year we opened our  concert season with a large orchestra concert at the GLOBE Vienna. For the very first time I travelled to Vienna with my orchestra, the OÖ Mozartensemle, the Cocopelli band and the children's choir of the Tschempernkids Family to play for 800 loyal and new Cocopelli fans. Maybe you are wondering how it is possible that the Cocopelli hits can now be performed with orchestra. That did not happen overnight either.  All this was prepared quite well many years ago.

In 2015 I had the pleasure to meet the pianist, arranger, cabaret artist, author and recently also conductor Christoph Reuter while working in the Waldhaus Studio in Germany. I told him about my dream of playing with an orchestra. And because Christoph is a master in time management and on top of that a great arranger, he said: "Why don't you send a few songs?“  So the first Cocopelli orchestral works matured on the computer, mostly while travelling by train. When Christoph sent me the songs and I could hear the music for the first time, I was so touched that I had to cry even to the MIDI instruments. MIDI instruments are not real instruments, just programmed sounds that turn the written notes into tones.

What a joy that the organizer of our Christmas concerts in Bernau Castle, Hans Wadauer, is a member of the OÖ Mozartensemble. He suggested to me in 2018 that exactly this ensemble could bring my songs on stage with me in the future. Until then, I had never worked with professional musicians in the orchestral field. Somehow people always imagine an orchestra to be somewhat outdated. You realize already, I haven't been to a classical concert for a long time either. The Mozartensemble is so young and dynamic that they can even play without a conductor, but under the leadership of concertmaster Julia Kürner. We have been touring together since 2019 and look forward to playing many concerts in the future.

And on top of that my favourite choir accompanied me: The children's choir of the Tschempernkids Family. Many of my CDs were sung by this choir and some of the choir children of that time now lead the children's and youth choirs of the association themselves. The children and choir leaders are now full professionals. There is no whining behind the scenes, there are so many bright faces on stage and we always had a lot of fun in the rehearsals as well.