Fall 2021 Schedule

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.

Singing at the Biergarten in Olbrich Park

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.

Singing in the parking lot

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.

Paul Wertsch

Our own Paul Wertsch was the subject of an article in the UW’s School of Medicine and Public Health quarterly magazine. Oddly enough, the article is not about prescribing brandy for choir members.

If you haven’t seen it yet, click here to see the online version of the article.

2020 Choir Portrait

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:

2020 Choir Portrait

Group photo of the 2020 Madison Maennerchor

Wir wuenschen eine frohe Weihnacht

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!

On the Road to Prohibition: The Temperance Battle and German-American Brewers

Live Virtual Lecture

On the Road to Prohibition:
The Temperance Battle and German-American Brewers

with Jana Weiß

Thursday, December 10, 2020, at 12:00 noon CT

Free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required
​email Antje Petty (apetty@wisc.edu) to receive a link to the event
[Links will be sent a day before the event]

A hundred years ago, Prohibition was enacted nationwide in the United States. This lecture juxtaposes the evolution of the temperance movement with the role of beer and wine in German-American communities. Special emphasis will be on the Midwest in the period from the founding of the Anti-Saloon League in 1893 until World War I, when German-American brewers became the main target of pro-temperance activists.

© Markus Reinke
Jana Weiß is Associate Professor of History at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Germany). Her research focuses on the interplay of technology, race, religion, and human migration in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Dr. Weiß’s current research project examines the lager beer revolution in the U.S., led by German-American brewers.

For more information go to the MKI website or contact Antje Petty (apetty@wisc.edu)