Altdorf (CH), Alpentöne

Altdorf – Alpentöne Internationales Musikfestival

Our flight to Zürich Airport was nice and short...although I am pretty sure that the distance between each row of seats becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller everytime...as we were traveling to mathias’ homeland and he knows the train system by heart we followed his lead from platform to platfrom, from train to train until a bus took us right where we needed to be – in the middle of this beautiful little town called Altdorf - right in front of the Wilhelm Tell monument. mathias has a special connection to this international festival as he was the artistic director for the first and second edition – he was very excited and nervous about being back - this time on the other side – on stage – at the piano. Thank you to Mister Johannes Rühl, the present artistic director, for inviting us to this wonderful festival and letting us be a part and thank you to Hansjörg Felber the founder and person responsible of Alpentöne. We played at 22:45 in the „Schlüsselsaal“...so for us it was quite late : ) and Nina Brunner, the anchorwoman of the night, warned us about the temperature in the venue...she was right it was hot indeed – in many different ways!I have to say that it probably was the warmest and most energetic welcome we’ve had so far!!!The audience welcomed us with so much support and energy that instantly got our rhythm section cookin’ and Fab and me workin’ : ) we had a wonderful time on stage!!!Hans played an incredible solo on „The numbers & the dates“ and filled us all with groove and sound!!!OHYEAH!Thank you to everyone who came out that night!!!A special thank you to the fascinating musicians of Alma who took time to listen to us after their opening concert!
We were all sweating together and I loved it! Sometimes I can’t believe how much has changed since we played Franz Schuberts Winterreise with poems by Wilhelm Müller for the very first time in 2013...how much these songs have changed us...
After our concert we all went to the main tent and had excellent Swiss beer and wine. The energy at Alpentöne is so very inspiring...musicians were playing all night long...people were laughing, dancing, talking and clapping.  Thank you Hans, Julia, Corinne and Ingrid for our intimate conversations that inspired me so much.

It simply was one of these nights...one of these special nights...thank you mathias...

It was early in the morning when I fell asleep...I woke up a couple of hours later to travel to Lac Lèman – mathias and I spent two more days traveling by train and ship through Switzerland.  We visited Rainer Marias Rilke tomb in the little village Raron on top of the hill at the beautiful church that looked upon the village.
It’s been a year since we stayed at the sweet little hotel at Lac Lèman  - it was after we finished our recordings of „My Poet’s Love“ at Powerplay Studios/Maur and this time we started to talk about what could be next...gone too far – my poet’s love - ???

I hope to be back soon, yours Lia!

P.S.: Thank you Roli and Elisabeth for coming all the way to Altdorf and Roli – thank you for the great lunch and the amazing plum cake (mathias made the exception just for you and maybe for the cake : ))

The Event:
Altdorf (CH), Alpentöne