On May 6, 2012 we sang at the Wisconsin State Capitol in celebration of the 160th anniversary of the Madison Maennerchor. We had a video recording made of the concert which was available on DVD. We’ve converted the DVD to MP4 format and posted the video of the concert on YouTube. The link is below:
Enjoy!
The UW Athletic Department invited us to sing the national anthem at the volleyball match against Penn State on Saturday October 23rd. We were happy to accept and about fifteen of us were able to be at the UW Field House for the event. We had a sound check around 4:15 and then we just hung out until we we sang at 6:00. Everything went pretty well, and most of us stayed for at least part of the match, which Wisconsin won in 5 sets – it was a close one!
There are a few photos below; as always click on the thumbnail to see a larger image. Thanks again to Ryan and all the folks at UW for inviting us and making us feel welcome – we had a great time!
The Essen Haus held its Oktoberfest on September 18th this year and we were invited to sing a few songs during the break between the two bands in the afternoon. It was good to be back at the Essen Haus after Oktoberfest was canceled last year due to the pandemic. This was our first performance since February 2020, so it was good to singing together again in the friendly confines of the Essen Haus parking lot. It was a beautiful day, and I think we all had a good time.
Here are a few photos of the choir in action. As always, click on the thumbnail to see the larger image.
On Thursday September 2, we met at the Biergarten in Olbrich Park. We had a brief meeting to discuss our fall schedule and resuming rehearsals, and then we had some time to talk and relax and have a beer or two.
We are planning on resuming rehearsals on Thursday September 9th, but we will be singing outside in the Turner Hall parking lot. We’ll begin at 6:30 to make the best use of the available daylight. We also decided that all choir members should be vaccinated to take part in rehearsals.
Here are some photos from Olbrich Park:
Replenishing fluids after running the Middleton GNF 5 K, August 28, 2021
It’s been quite a while since we last sang at the Middleton Good Neighbor Festival, but pretty much every year a few of us take part in the Middleton GNF 5 K race. As always, we’re just a second tenor away from having a quartet, but somehow it always turns out ok.
It was a hot and humid morning this year, but we did the best we could, and then of course had to replenish fluids after the race!
It’s been quite a while (since March 12, 2020), but we are planning to resume rehearsals and we already have a few events on our Fall calendar. We haven’t planned out the entire Fall schedule yet, but this is what we have so far:
September 2, 2021: We are planning on having our last summer biweekly meeting at the Biergarten in Olbrich Park at 6:30 pm. There may also be a Vorstand meeting here as well.
September 9: We are tentatively planning on having our first rehearsal on Thursday September 9th. But with the Dane County mask mandate and the air flow issues in Turner Hall we are thinking about have the rehearsal out doors, either at the Turner Hall parking lot or else at a city park shelter. The rehearsal would probably begin around 6:30 pm to take advantage of the daylight. This is all very tentative; there will be email updates as we get closer.
September 18: We will be singing at the Essen Haus Oktoberfest once again! We’ll probably be singing later in the afternoon as we usually do. We’ll discuss the timing at one of our rehearsals.
October 9: We’ve been invited to sing at the Strassenfest in Plain Wisconsin on Saturday October 9. The details, including transportation to Plain, are still pending.
We’ve been meeting informally every two weeks or so this summer, and on July 8th we met at the Biergarten at Olbrich Park. If you’ve never been there, you really should visit sometime – it’s a great place to sit and relax and enjoy the view on Lake Monona. Oh, and perhaps drink a beer or two.
We met there at 6:30 or so and after we had warmed up, Paul Essert led us through a few songs. It was a beautiful evening, with very few mosquitos, and it was good to sing together again. I’m sure it’s only a coincidence that soon after we began to sing, several of the tables near us suddenly became empty 🙂
As always, click on the thumbnail image to see the larger image.
On Thursdays June 3rd we had one of our biweekly parking lot meetings at Turner Hall. We had about ten members in attendance, and after replenishing fluids on such a warm day, we warmed up and sang a few songs. After a Bierpause, we saw a few more songs. It was good to sing together again!
Click on the thumbnail image to see the larger photo.
Before we halted our rehearsals in March 2020 due to the pandemic, we did have a photo session for a choir portrait. This would have appeared in the program book for our Spring 2020 Concert, but of course that was canceled too. Here is the photo:
Group photo of the 2020 Madison Maennerchor
Our 2020 Christmas Concert & Dinner has been cancelled due to the pandemic, so we’ve put together a short Christmas video. The soundtrack is our rendition of “Wir wuenschen eine frohe Weihnacht” from our “O Tannenbaum” CD that we recorded a while back. We traditionally sing this song at the end of the Christmas Concert. The photos of the choir and Sankt Nikolaus are from our 2015 Christmas Concert & Dinner and were taken by Carrie Wilkey.
The video has been uploaded to MMC channel on YouTube. If you’re interested in seeing it, please click here!