Dietmar Morand and I at the Kriwet Exhibition at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
©Manfred Schmidt, Düsseldorf
Eurovision might be over, but these tours can still be booked -
please enquire to tours@rhinebuzz.com for details
Four Fixed public dates, in German, with surprise guests and concert tickets to win:
Saturday at 3pm from the Tourist Info Altstadt:
The tour will take place every first Saturday of the month
Next date July 7 2012
This is how the tour began in Spring 2011:
Eurovision might be over, but these tours can still be booked -
please enquire to tours@rhinebuzz.com for details
Four Fixed public dates, in German, with surprise guests and concert tickets to win:
Saturday at 3pm from the Tourist Info Altstadt:
The tour will take place every first Saturday of the month
Next date July 7 2012
This is how the tour began in Spring 2011:
The musical force of Düsseldorf is extraordinary, with protagonists such as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Kraftwerk and the Toten Hosen weaving its rich and influential history.
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Next week Dietmar Morand and I begin giving the first "We Love Music" - the ideal tour for the Eurovision Song Contest, when media eyes and Eurovision fans from all around the world will be focused on the city for this great musical event!
Düsseldorf Marketing and Tourism are offering 9 tours to the public in German and 9 in English from April 28 - May 14. All begin at 5pm and last 90 mins. They can be booked online here or at one of the DMT shops in town or at the main station.
I was commissioned by the DMT to write two new tours for the city, "Arts in Düsseldorf" and "We Love Music", so the last couple of months have been a frenzy of interviewing and getting to know so many people and institutions for these beguiling projects.
The doors that have opened for me have been a real delight to enter and although combined with all the other stuff I have been asked to get involved with for Eurovision it's all been, and still is a huge amount of work, I'm really honoured to have been asked to take this on.
Added to this I've been putting together two ESC Shows for the BBC. One for national Radio Two, the Ken Bruce show and then also for BBC Radio Berkshire, The Andrew Peach Breakfast Show.
Added to this I've been putting together two ESC Shows for the BBC. One for national Radio Two, the Ken Bruce show and then also for BBC Radio Berkshire, The Andrew Peach Breakfast Show.
For the last few weeks I have already been accompanying the first of the 2,500 foreign journalists expected around the city for ESC, using much of the material from these two tours for the press work. The response has been very good, the press have left not with one mainstream article about the city as host to ESC but with enough material and ideas for several cultural pieces on the city. They discovered a hub of arts and music that they simply didn't know existed!
To all those that invited me into their studios, homes and party basements :), thank you; for the phone numbers that have been passed onto me; the contacts that have generously been shared; for the time you have given me, thank you. And most of all for the trust and the smiles.
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| Talking new painting and new music with Emil Schult |
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| A very special visit to the Krypta at the Robert Schumann School of Music which Emil Schult decorated, an absolute "insiders tip" in Düsseldorf |
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| Tim and I crawled around 22 metres up high in the dome of the Tonhalle with sound engineer Andreas Kainz to understand how the Tonhalle actually works! |
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| VIP Shuttle for Scottish journalist Lillian McDowall |
To all those that invited me into their studios, homes and party basements :), thank you; for the phone numbers that have been passed onto me; the contacts that have generously been shared; for the time you have given me, thank you. And most of all for the trust and the smiles.
So, with all my heart, my thanks go to: Monique Maasen, Michael Schnitzler, Tanja Brill and Wilfried Schmerbach, Emil Schult, Christiane Oxenfort, Henry Storch, Meike Knoche and Andreas Kainz, Phillipp Maiburg, Christian Banasik, Rafael Minarro, Alvero Mendizabal, Luis Redigor, Vom Ritchie and JKP GmbH Management, Professor Hermann-Josef Kuhna, Daniel Fiene, Felicitas Hackmann, Manfred Schmidt, Marina Schuster, Dirk Schewe, Alexandra Iwan, Monika and Eckard Günnewig, ISR, Peter Rewald, Michael Sonneck, Susan Jones, Manfred Hill, Helma Kremer, Steffi Herbrich and Kristin Schröter
and to all the fans, music enthusiasts and numerous others who have spoken to us and shared their work and memories.
Thanks to Tim. You have taken on the challenge of working with me admirably
and are doing a fantastic job!
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Strobe lighting at the recent Creamcheese Revival Party. Creamcheese probably showed Germany's first strobe lightning in the 1960s
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No doubt after Eurovision these tours will continue, we have mountains of material to share with you and delicious morsels of musical surprises for the tours. Other subjects are in the planning, and we do realise that we will have to offer them at a later time. I've already received numerous emails saying that the time is too early. But the RhineBuzz community have been asking me to begin tours again for a while now and so here we are, it's a great start!
Tim and I have thoroughly enjoyed the research and the music for these tours and we are looking forward to the next few weeks, the run up to Eurovision and all the city events that will be going on enormously!
Tim and I have thoroughly enjoyed the research and the music for these tours and we are looking forward to the next few weeks, the run up to Eurovision and all the city events that will be going on enormously!
Come join the party!
