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As Dorina's husband, I'm probably the wrong person to be writing this... I wouldn't want you to get the impression I might be biased! But I thought it was time to add something in English to the info in German you'll find on the links below. This page is still under construction, so please bear with me. She should have her own site on line very soon.
2000
Spring Concert 2000
Christmas Party 2001
Summer Serenade 2001
25 Jahre Musikverein Esthal
The Australian Girls Choir - A Roadie's Perspective
It was early in 1999. At a choral concert in
Neustadt-Weinstrasse's Saalbau, Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Melbourne, Bangkok, London, Frankfurt... Esthal ! Frantic e-mail traffic zoomed across the globe. In a coordinated effort, accommodation was somehow found in Esthal and nearby Frankeneck for around fifty-five Australians. The girls were paired off with families of local choir members, hotel rooms were found for Lyn Richardson, Nicole Muir, Libby Franke, Barbara Warren-Smith, and the two British drivers of the group's enormous double-decker bus.
Deadly serious was one girl's allergy to "Band Aids". "Oh, my God! She can't stay here!" The eighty-word English vocabulary of those unfortunate parents assigned this luckless child was enough to clearly understand the significance of "AIDS", but they had no idea what on earth a "BAND AID" could be! Neither did Dorina - I explained it to her and we laughed ourselves silly! I suspect a
list had been circulated and each At the end of September, the big day finally arrived. I got a phone call on Saturday morning: poor Lyn Richardson from the bus, which had got hopelessly lost and was miles off its route. "The driver's worried about his bus, Mike. He's... um, slightly bombastic." I could tell Lyn's nerves were being tested to their limits. I gathered the poor guy was ready to throw his keys out of the window and let the Aussies walk! "No problem, Lyn," a mental picture formed of a twelve ton, four meter high double decker, with the steering wheel on the wrong side, trying to negotiate some of the dolls-house roads around Neustadt. If it got stuck under one of the low bridges... "Relax, Lyn," nothing wrong with a bit of applied psychology, I thought. "Tell him I used to drive a Volvo F12 for a living. That'll shut him up for a bit."
Muffled conversation in the background, and Lyn came back on, in a slightly hurt voice: "He says he wants to talk to you!" Obviously a mere female, even a highly educated one, had no business directing the movements of a man's vehicle... To cut a long story short, I met the bus in Neustadt and guided
them through the city and up to our hilltop
village. In Esthal, the girls were introduced to their temporary
"parents", and for the first time during their stressful tour,
the Australians began to relax and unwind knowing they were safe amongst
friends! The journey across the world had been a fearful ordeal for them, and there were a couple of inevitable casualties. My first job that week as Roadie was to get the worst fever cases to the local Health Center. It was a hectic but enjoyable week. The girls got a chance to tour our area, and delighted visitors in nearby Speyer Cathedral with a short, impromptu performance. We were constantly amazed by the precision with which Lyn was able to direct the girls' movements - their tough training paid off. The young German choir were fascinated, observing the Australian girls' discipline in action: nobody ever had to raise their voice to talk - one merely raised a hand. The next person to see the raised hand raises theirs and stops talking, and so on until everybody is silent and listens to what the hand-raiser has to say. Quick and effective, at the risk of looking too regimental. But at least Australian choir conductors don't need to shout themselves hoarse at every practice! Every evening Dorina
The concert in Esthal, performed for a packed and appreciative
audience, was a wonderful success. Genuine, lasting friendships were formed during the short time we had together, and plenty of tears were shed when, sadly, the Australians piled back into their enormous vehicle and headed down the hill away from us. If only they could have stayed another week. Or a month... The Australian Girls Choir are truly terrific ambassadors for their great nation. On the dashboard of our old VW bus, you'll see a genuine boomerang, a treasured gift from the Australian Girls Choir to their willing English roadie...
Saturday, 22 September 2001: for
the first time in living memory, the Sports Centre in Esthal was booked solid
and sold out. The three hundred and five available seats were sold several days before the
concert, and the same number again would have gone if space had allowed. The word was
out! This was going to be a show you did NOT want to miss!
Some were skeptical at first - no other choir in the area has ever attempted anything like this! But in the end it proved worth all the effort. Apart from Grease and
Saturday Night Fever, medleys from other Broadway Musicals were featured:
Les Miserables, A Chorus Line, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins, West Side Story - all with moving
solos by Vocal Cords talented young singers. To set the ambient of pre-war Berlin night
club life, The concert was the most elaborately prepared show ever seen in Esthal. The thirty-plus members of Vocal Cords delivered a truly sparkling, professional performance that would have done credit to a national-level theatre. Twenty minutes of encores and standing ovations from an enthralled audience made it all worthwhile. This show was such a success that it would be a pity not to repeat it again at least one more time. So Dorina and Vocal Cords are considering putting a second performance on some time in the near future. Stay tuned!
LATEST: The
second performance will be at 20:00, 31 October 2001,
Copyright © 2001 by Mike Graham. All rights reserved. |
Dorina
Graham
Dorina's
Young People's Choir (Vocal Cords) earned tumultuous applause for their
outstanding performances of Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) and We Are The
World (Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie). Dorina had her hands full - she
moderated the entire event and accompanied not just her own choir at the
piano but several others too. Amongst the audience was Lyn Richardson, conductor
of the world famous 
The logistical problems taxed even Dorina to the limits. A list
of some of the girls' "allergies" arrived by e-mail: One girl was
allergic to bull ants. We
gently pointed out that the only ones likely to be crawling around in the
Northern Hemisphere live in zoos... There was hardly a girl on the list that didn't react
badly to milk, red meat, white meat, fleas, flies, citrus fruits, yeast or rancid yak's
butter. Dust and cats, dogs' hair and rabbits, chocolates... they were allergic to everything that moved, breathed or grew! No
place on earth would be safe for them.
girl
felt obliged to write SOMETHING down! I asked aloud whether it
might not just be safer to have the whole lot flown by MEDEVAC
helicopter to the local hospital on arrival... BAD thing to say,
Mike!
It
did. To most bus drivers, the world is divided into two classes of people: those
who can handle big trucks, and those who can't. 
held
choir practices with both choirs together, and Australian and German choristers discovered how
easily they worked as a single combined group. At the last choir practice I stopped by to look in, but
just couldn't find Dorina. No wonder - she was now wearing an Australian Girls Choir
T- shirt and an enormous floppy black uniform hat! 
It
was truly heartwarming to see two groups of young people from opposite sides of
the globe, bonded by their love of music. The Australians are a world class choir, and it was a memorable evening. 
Back
in January, inspired by those two mid-seventies John Travolta cult movies,
Saturday Night Fever and Grease, the choir began practicing dance routines. This
was new - they often rehearse a piece to be sung from memory, but adding
professional choreography increases the work load tenfold. And
work they did! Hundreds of hours of rehearsals, gallons of sweat -
practice, practice and more practice. Frayed nerves and stretched muscles...
Dorina
donned her highest heels, black fishnet stockings, a bowler hat, and a very sexy outfit for her own
chairborne rendition of
Liza Minelli’s Oscar-winning Cabaret.