Catwalks at the NRW-Forum



"the most exciting fashion exhibit up anywhere in the world right now"


This is what Fashion Week Daily has to say about the exhibition Catwalks at the NRW-Forum in Duesseldorf, Germany.







Alexandre de Betak and Caroline in front of the John Galliano Ukranian Virgin Bride Show installation

Exhibition now over!

The new show at the NRW-Forum is Catwalks and what a spectacular exhibition this promises to be!

This show is about the theatre of fashion, which at the catwalk shows in Paris, New York and Milan is, for some designers, taking precedence over the actual fashion itself.
It is also an exhibition for everyone interested in multi-media and video installations. An absolute feast for the senses!

You, the visitor, will receive a headset on entry to this exhibition and will then actually walk the catwalk through nineteen of the most impressive fashion shows of the past thirty years. All around you will experience the catwalk shows by way of a 3D, multi-media installation.
The show has been designed by Alexander de Betak, one of the greatest directors in the fashion business, and is brought to you in partnership with Vogue.

U-Bahn Tonhalle/Ehrenhof The entrance to the museum is where the flags are opposite the park (Hofgarten). Don't walk as far as the main road facing the Rhine.

You enter the exhibition at your own risk.






Armin Mueller Stahl at NRW-Forum


© Bernd Ahrens photography

There is an exhibition of the sketches and paintings of the veteran German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl upstairs at the NRW-Forum until 27th September. ARM is one of the few German actors who has made it big in Hollywood, last seen as Cardinal Strauss in Angels and Demons. An accomplished violinist, painter and drawer, AMS spent the breaks whilst filming his most recent work, an opulent costume drama from the 1920's of the Thomas Mann book The Budenbrooks, sketching over the screenplay. When the state of North Rhine Westfalia wished to give AMS an award one minister came up with the idea of giving this modest gentleman an exhibition at the NRW-Forum. AMS was moved to tears.

AMS's grand mother, mother and aunt were all artists. When naughty as a young boy, one of these 'house angels' would say "sit down" and they would sketch him with his sour face, capturing his screwed up eyes and nose and the very moment of rage or sadness. It was with such depth that the young AMS learnt to take in the world around him; no doubt this quiet observation has contributed much towards his enormous talent. He is a much-admired, and indeed, a much-loved actor.
If you visit the NRW-Forum on a Friday after 6pm, admission to both Catwalks and AMS will cost just €5.00. An absolute bargain!

Opera for Everyone




The Opera on the Rhine will open the new season with a gala performance of classic and favourite pieces embracing Verdi, Wagner, Offfenbach and Strauss at the Düsseldorf Opera House on Saturday 29th August at 8pm. In addition there will be a free live broadcast of this extra-special performance on the Burgplatz as part of a family day of Oper am Rhein für Alle. This will begin at 2pm and will include entertainment all day revolving around the world of opera. There will be short movies and video installations about the opera, quizzes and lounge and club sounds from the Clou Experience.
Of course, never missing from any German festival, the square will also be filled with gastronomic delights throughout the afternoon and evening.

In the Opera House the world class cast will include leading sopranos Deborah Polaski, Morenike Fadayomi and the acclaimed Wagner bass Hans-Peter König.
The gala will be hosted by one of Germany's most popular tv presenters Harald Schmidt.
This promises to be not only a spectacular day for all opera fans but also for anyone who has always wanted to know more about what happens in that grand, large white building at the Hofgarten.

RhineBuzz will be visiting the Opera again in the new season too. Details following soon.

The Hentrich Glass Museum in mkp



Correlations 31.10.09 - 04.04.10
GLASpekte 07.11.09 -14.03.10

The Hentrich Glass Collection is one of the largest collections of glass in Europe. It is part of the museum kunst palast and is based around the collection donated by the architect and great collector Helmut Hentrich.
Glass stretching over 3000 years can be admired here from pre-Roman to present day studio glass.
The Collection comprises of pieces that are always on show plus special exhibits such as the current show Correlations, glass from the collection of Malou Marjerus; a varied group of many forms, techniques and colours. My favourite just had to be the beautiful lime green handbag you can see above.
Entry to the Glass Collection is on the left hand side of the Ehrenhof, opposite the main entrance to museum kunst palast. €6.
In addition to this attached to the Tonhalle, the round concert hall at the beginning of the Ehrenhof, there is a beautiful arched, green exhibition space. This is used by the Hentrich Collection to give you a gratis taster of the treasures in store just down the path at the museum.
Michael Behrens Underwater World

The Current show GLASpekte is a collection of work by members of the NRW Association of Glass Artists. The pieces on show have been made by taking inspiration from the main collection in the museum. The director Dr Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk has spent much time in the USA and will be happy to give us a RhineBuzz tour in English sometime. We just need to fix a date.
Dedo von Kerrsenbrock-Krosigk views
Reiner Eul Komposition xv1/09
The Glass Museum is certainly a gem in Düsseldorf, and as with so many places, somewhere waiting to be discovered.
Go and take a look at the exhibition space in the Tonhalle. It's free!
GLASpekte in the Green Archway Tues - Sun 1-6pm.

RhineBuzz at the Opera




Our sell-out first night at the Opera on the Rhine was a great success.

For many of our visitors this was the first time they had visited the opera and the feedback I have had has been excellent with several saying they would like to return soon.

The performance we enjoyed on June 23rd was La Wally, set in snowy Austrian Tirol during a festival.The feedback I have heard so far has been wonderful. Our colourful group was made up of visitors from Korea, Germany, Italy, India, Scandinavia, Japan, USA, South Africa, Spain, UK and the Netherlands.


The incredible voice of leading lady Morenike Fadayomi left many with goose bumps and even a few tears. You can catch her again soon here at the Opera House as she will be the star of Porgy and Bess which is playing from 28.07 - 09.08.09.
After the performance we were treated to a privileged peek backstage lead by Kurt Helbig, head of marketing at the Rheinopera. The glimpse behind the scenes was absolutely fascinating as we discovered the sheer volume and just a fraction of the complexity involved in what goes into putting on the spectacular productions at this historic opera house. The stage staff could not have been more accommodating, even elevating us at one point on the hydraulic stage.

We'd like to thank the Opera House and especially Kurt Helbig for making this happen. We look forward to visiting the Rheinopera again in the new season. If you would like to join the mailing list for forthcoming opera events, and this includes the ballet too, please send an email to opera@rhinebuzz.com

Free English Tour of Michel Comte Retrospective at the NRW-Forum


Michel Comte at the NRW-Forum 
1 February - 10 May 2009





Filming with Teruko, Terumi and Maki


Following the success of RhineBuzz at the Albert Watson Best Of exhibition we are thrilled to have been asked to be part of the new show at NRW-Forum, Michel Comte Retrospective, the much sought after press and fashion photographer. We were at the the press conference yesterday and I was simply stunned at several of the photographs. The images are arresting, some stop you in your tracks.
From meticulously staged intimate,"paparazzi" type pictures from the celebrity world to the harsh images of war this exhibition is defintiely not to be missed.
The show begins on Sunday 1st February and from February 6th we will be giving a free tour in English every Friday at 9pm.

We also host a Stammtisch from 9pm until midnight, where all English speakers both old and new to the area are very welcome. You can join the Stammtisch even if you do not wish to visit the exhibition. Don't be shy - come along and find out what's happening in and around Düsseldorf.


our guests & friends from El Salvador, Iceland, Germany, Ireland, USA, Japan, India, Panama, Sweden, Russia, Haiti .....





Martin Schläpfer at the Rhine Ballet


Rhine Ballet b.01
We have tickets for the Premier of b.o3 in Düsseldorf on Feb 21st. Email us for details

The new director at the Rhine Ballet, Martin Schläpfer, has been causing more than a stir since arriving in here Düsseldorf. Take a look at this rehearsal video and you know that he is putting his dancers through some incredibly physical stuff. Added to this one of the ensemble also put on Facebook that she had never known such muscle pain(!), so it was with much anticipation that I actually went to see b.01.
I was NOT disappointed. My goodness what an extraordinary performance! I loved part one, March, Waltz, Polka and felt that the final part, Symphony, was a total attack on all senses - in a most impressive way. Almost like you could actually smell what was going on! WoW. Go see.
The Opera have kindly reserved special-priced tickets for us for the ballet b.02 for 16th April 2010. Details to follow nearer the time.
Meanwhile check this out to see what all the buzz is about. It's brought to you by Deutsche Welle, German news in English.

Martin Schläpfer was awarded the most prestigious German theatre prize, the Faust Prize, for the category choreography, in November. Congratulations!


b.02 Kunst der Fuge

Fish and Chips



There were certainly a lot of beautiful smiling faces at Fish and Chips last Saturday.
Jimsession were just fabulous and many of you wished to buy cds. Soon their manager told me.
Many thanks to our sponsors who gave us some fabulous prizes: Baccalà, NRW-
Forum, Takagi and Werner Hoffrichter who took us into Burn's Night with his spectacular bagpipes!

Special thanks to Tonino who managed to produce 150 portions of excellent
fish and chips. WoW!
To Nicola and Dinesh, a big hug and a thousand thanks who commnicated our event to all of NRW, and to André who will magic another wonderful movie for us and to Mark who took care of the door so brilliantly. What would RhineBuzz do without you all!

We look forward to salsaing with with our friend George who won the four week course on our up and coming RhineBuzz Salsa Nights.


And of course a heartfelt thank you to all for coming. Often I am asked how you can help RhineBuzz - just tell everyone what you tell me - that you had a great time. It's as simple as that!

Thanks also to Catherine Sparks for many of the superb photos.


Per Kirkeby and Caspar Wolf at kunst palast


26.09.09 - 10.01.2010

museum kunst palast

Per Kirkeby, Beat Wismer and Kay Heymer

Caspar Wolf Landscape 1771 - 1774
all photographs ©Bernd Ahrens

The exhibitions Per Kirkeby and Caspar Wolf opened at the museum kunst palast on Friday evening with a concert by Mike Westbrook and Kate Westbrook.
The Per Kirkeby exhibition is a collaboration with Tate Moden London and I was fortunate to speak to the director of the Tate Modern, Vincente Todoli, at Thursday's press conference. I asked him why they has chosen the kunst palast to join forces with and he told me that they had been in talks with the kunst palast on several occasions, Dusseldorf is right he said and this museum with it's airey exhibition space is superb to show Kirkeby's monumental works. He was pleased that the show could now be extended for Dusseldorf. I glimpsed at the show in London recently where the exhibition space was slightly more modest than here and indeed here in Düsseldorf it takes on a very different feeling.

Beat Wismer and Per Kirkeby
Kirkeby studied as a geologist so the idea to show his work alongside the Swiss pre-romantic painter Caspar Wolf was a master stroke by the kunst palast's director Beat Wismer. Both artists were/are fascinated by mountains and rock formations and although their interpretations are very different the similarities are also very strong.
These two artists, that lived and worked 200 years apart, are deeply connected, do go along to the show and discover this exhibition for yourselves. It's a beautiful, intriguing and historically a very informative show.

Speaking with Vincenti Todoli (Tate Modern) and Kay Heymer and below Beat Wismer (museum kunst palast)


The Schumann Quartett


RhineBuzz tickets sold out - you can still buy tickets from the venue
In October I spent a wonderful afternooon in the company of the young Schumann Quartett in The Robert Schumann Hall of the museum kunst palast.
These four musicians range in age from just 21 to 28. Their youth and uncomplicated nature filled the stage which we were invited to share with them. We were treated to two pieces which were light and totally enchanting so that we, the journalists and photographers, were quite simply hungering for more when they finished playing for us. I eagerly await their first full performance in the Hall on Sunday 25th October. The quartet then went on to giving us a real insight on the life of a young musical family of this incredible standard.
The Schumann Quartet comprise of the half German-Romanian, half Japanese Schumann siblings Erik, 1st violin, Ken, 2nd violin, Mark, 'cello and the charming Japanese Ayoko Goto, viola.
The Schumann's father is a member of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra and as they talked about how the quartet came about it was easy and fascinating to observe how this family worked together. The respect and harmony they shared, quite simply beguiling. A family that makes you think once again I wish I could play an instrument ...
All study or have studied at the Cologne Academy of Music and already have a wealth of experience behind them. Erik, the oldest brother is an established soloist of world-wide reputation who has been provided with a violin of Stradivarius from around 1722.

After the press conference I asked Erik, the older brother, how his English was. OK he modestly repiled. His friend next to him assured me it was more than ok, so I asked him if he could speak a few words especially for the RhineBuzz community. He willingly said yes as I explained to him who you all are and what RhineBuzz is.
We will meet Erik Schumann before the concert at 3.20pm. After our talk with him we can either visit the museum or spend time in the cafe until the concert begins at 5pm.

RhineBuzz at the Robert Schumann Hall will happen on Sunday January 31st.

The Robert Schumann Hall is in the basement of the museum kunst palast which is at the end and to the right of the Ehrenhof where the NRW-Forum also is.
The concerts will be unusual in that the young quartet will introduce the pieces that they play themselves and will offer anecdotes and brief demonstrations on the different styles of what they play. It will, without a doubt, bring chamber music closer to those that wish to know more in a casual and lighthearted way.
I am really looking forward to January 31st 2010.

It goes without saying that would be superb if we could bring as many of the international community to this international quartet and I know that we will be witnessing a concert of extraordinary magic and the beginning of fabulous careers for these gifted young people.

If you would like to join us please send an email to mkp@rhinebuzz.com or you can buy your tickets directly from the box office at the Tonhalle. Excellent seats (€18) have been reserved for Caroline West until 24th January.

Erstklassik! 31st January 2010

Joseph Haydn
“Lerchenquartett“ D-Dur op. 64 Nr. 5
Robert Schumann
Streichquartett a-Moll op. 41 Nr. 1
Astor Piazzolla
Tango Ballet
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Streichquartett Nr. 17
Astor Piazzolla
Four, for Tango

Tickets €12/15/18



The Opera on the Rhine




b.02 Kunst der Fuge Rhine Ballet

It's been a very eventful few days at the Opera on the Rhine for RhineBuzz.
We have seen the children's opera Robin Hood, a colourful and enchanting

introduction to the opera for the younger ones. The audience at the premier in Duisburg were yelling for more when the final curtain fell.
On Thursday a group of us saw The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach at the Opera House in Düsseldorf. I think we were all a little intrigued to see how we would fare through this marathon piece but all were surprised at how much we really enjoyed the beautiful, tuneful and sometimes amusing performance.
Also included in our group last week were a couple visiting from the States, regular opera goers to the Met in New York. Regular visitors to our city they were charmed, and I think quite surprised, at what Düsseldorf has to offer and are keen to return on their next visit! Can't get a better recommendation than that!
On Sunday I also saw the ballet b.o2 Kunst der Fuge in Duisburg. Another enormously physical piece by Martin Schläpfer. It is simply awe inspiring to enjoy the strength of his dancers and allow them to take you off into another world.
You can purchase all tickets for the Oper and Ballet here. The information in English is on it's way the Opera House tells me. There is also an excellent ticket and information shop next to the Opera House on the Heinrich-Heinrich-Allee 24.


I receive a whole number of delightful messages about our opera events - here are just a few:


"Thanks Caroline for an awesome (as always perfectly organized) evening on Thursday. I really didn’t expect it would be so good! Looking forward to future events."

"Another well organised enjoyable RhineBuzz event. Thanks Caroline.
The ballet was not the top of my things to do but the consistently high standard of events made me attend with anticipation. Once again an eclectic mix of people who all seem friendly and open, and superb coreography by Caroline and the dancers on stage.
Somehow the expats Thursday drinking club in Koln does not seem as exciting as it used to be. Standing in a circle with one had in my pocket and a pint of lager in the other discussing the differences between Heinz baked beans in Germany and good old Albion is fine but its nice to to have a variety of cultural choices.
Its beans and caviar on toast from now on."

"Thank you SO much for organising the latest event, the opera. Hoffmann was marvelous!!! I am glad I went!"

Tales of Hoffmann

Come and join us for on March 4th for Louise by Gustave Charpentier. Send an email to oper@rhinebuzz.com for details.
The partnership with the Opera on the Rhine has worked out very well for all of us. We receive the best seats in the house at special prices for the RhineBuzz community and are pleased to have opera events coming up regularly until June 2010. It's great that RhineBuzz is opening doors, so many of us are unfamiliar with the opera, but those who are now joining
our trips are enjoying the opera and ballet enormously and telling me they would never have gone had it not been for our events.
We look forward to you joining us sometime.

RhineBuzz Launch Party


Thank you everyone (there were 160 of you) for coming to the launch party at the NRW-Forum, I hope you all had a pleasant evening and were not suffering too much the following morning. We hope to let you know shortly about our next event to be hopefully happening before the Christmas break.

Thank you again to Mayu Kishima and Pamela Falcon who made the evening an even more memorable event than we could have hoped for. In case you hadn't noticed further down the site, but Pamela has a regular performance happpening every Wednesday evening in Bochum to which you're all always invited. Many thanks also to Choya, the sponsor of our RhineBuzz cocktail.



If you think we may not have your email address and would like to be kept informed on what we're planning, please just drop us an email to mailings@rhinebuzz.com with something meaningful in the subject line and we'll send you occasional updates. We won't of course sell or use your email address for anything other then RhineBuzz updates.



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