VANESSA-MAE LIVE IN CHOREOGRAPHY CONCERT
HAMBURG, JULY 2, 2007

1 The Program

2 Introduction

3 Description of the concert

4 Photos of the concert

 

 

1 The program

(section on acoustic Guadagnini violin)

- Sabre Dance -
- Roxannes Veil  -
- Bolero for violin & orchestra  -
- Solace -
- Tango De Los Exilados -
- The Havana Slide -

(section on electric Zeta violin)


- Contradanza -
- Laughing Buddha -
- Hocus Pocus -
- Destiny -

(section on acoustic Guadagnini violin0

- Pasha -
- I Am A Doun -
Bach Street Prelude -
- Emerald Tiger -
- Tribal Gathering -
- Retro -
- Red Hot -
- Toccata & Fugue -
- Storm -

--- Encore ---

- Sabre Dance -

2 Introduction
This year 2007, Vanessa-Mae is busy creating a new album, as she told her best fans of the Vanessa-Mae Fans Forum in answer to the presents that were sent to her on the occasion of her 28th birthday. On the new album, Vanessa-Mae plans for her new album a more classical and orchestral approach around themes from the ballet and opera repertoire, see the topic Vanessa-Mae's feedback to our 2006 bday presents.  The new album will not be released before the autumn, probable more towards the end of the year. Apparently the progress in the project is sufficiently enough to allow Vanessa-Mae to embark on a short summer tour in 5 different cities in Germany and a stop in Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria, a series of concerts within the framework of the successful Choreography Tour of 2004 and 2005 of which reviews of 2 concerts are already available at this website, see Royal Festival Hall concert and Vanessa-Mae live in Dresden (2005). All in all, a fantastic opportunity to go to Germany to visit one of these concerts and to see Vanessa-Mae live in action once again. I travelled to Hamburg on the day of the concert together with friend and colleague fan Gerrit Bijsterbosch. We were both wondering whether Vanessa-Mae would play exactly the program as she did in Dresden - I went to Dresden together with Gerrit too - or whether Vanessa-Mae would make a different selection form her repertoire. I always found it very rewarding to feel the excitement in you veins when speculating about the music that Vanessa-Mae will be playing, about her outfit, her hair style and how she will be made up. The concert took place in the  Laeiszhalle that is located at the Johannes Brahms platz. The Laeiszhalle is a fine music hall designed for classical concerts. The main hall has seats for an estimated 1700-2000 visitors. Vanessa-Mae's concert in Hamburg was sold out, as were her concerts in Stuttgart, Fulda, Munchen and Bochum. The Laeiszhalle is depicted on photo 1 below and turned out to be a very fine and appropriate venue for Vanessa-Mae's concert.

3 Description of the concert
When you compare the program of this concert with the program of the concerts that I visited in London (2004) and Dresden (2005) several differences emerge. The program was built around Vanessa-Mae's recent recording Choreography. Raga's Dance and Moroccan Roll were both not in the listing, but Tribal Gathering was added instead. This means that Vanessa-Mae played the complete album Choreography, except Raga's Dance, Moroccan Roll and Handel's Minuet. Besides songs from Choreography, Vanessa-Mae played a selection from her older repertoire including the blockbuster successes Toccata & Fugue, Red Hot and Storm, 3 songs that always result in standing ovations of the audience for Vanessa-Mae. Other songs from her earlier albums included I Am A Doun, Bach Street Prelude, Retro, Laughing Buddha, Solace, Pasha, Destiny and Contradanza. Noticeable, Themes From Caravan, present in the Dresden concert, was left out of the program now. The concert was performed in one piece, without a break.

During her performance, Vanessa-Mae was accompanied by her band with guitarist, a bass player, a percussionist, a saxophone player, and a drummer, as well by a string section consisting of musician of local orchestras, including several violinist and cello players. The quality of the sound was very good. Band and string section delivered a very fine support to Vanessa-Mae who played, herself very driven, passionately and highly motivated.   

Vanessa-Mae started the show, as she did at all other Choreography concerts, with Sabre Dance. The audience welcomed Vanessa-Mae with an enthusiastic applause when she entered the stage. Vanessa-Mae appeared on stage in a wonderful long red dress made of light material that was shine through around her legs. Vanessa-Mae used the same dress during the Rover promotion in 1999 - see gallery 21 - and the charity event for elephant Dunbar last summer in 2006- see gallery 39. Vanessa-Mae's beautiful long black shining hair partly in 2 braids to the side of her head to pull it out of her face, and partly hanging free on her back. Clearly, Vanessa-Mae's face was made up, but only to a degree to keep her looks natural, and apart from excessive lipstick in colour red to match her dress, small lines of dark shadow and black accents on lashes and brows, nothing colourising was added to her smooth complexion. Vanessa-Mae had no jewelleries and she had silver shoes with spike heels and matching ribbons tied around her ankles. Vanessa-Mae was gorgeous and she looked superb the whole show. As always, she never touched her face as to keep her make-up in perfect condition during the whole evening.

 As mentioned, the concert opened with Sabre Dance that was performed along the lines as it is on the album. Then Vanessa-Mae addressed the audience telling that she found it fantastic to perform in  Germany again after more than 2 years. She told that she would play pieces form Choreography as well as a selection of her earlier repertoire. During the first part of the program Vanessa-Mae played on her acoustic Guadagnini violin songs from Choreography with only Solace added to it. This part was more or less the same as in the mentioned previous Choreography concert. All these songs were played very nicely, and especially Roxannes Veil was a fine example of how clear and bright the sound of Vanessa-Mae's Guadagnini violin really is live in a concert hall well defined by Vanessa-Mae fabulous technique. Solace is also one of my favourites since Vanessa-Mae's sole violin  part is so full emotions that are fantastically strengthened by the acoustic guitar accompanying it.

Next in part 2 of the concert, Vanessa-Mae switched to her electric Zeta violin and she explained with her soft voice in a nice way that she would now play older repertoire form her success album The Violin  Player, Storm and her more experimental - as she called it! - album Subject To Chance. This part of the show consisted of 4 songs of which her choice for Contradanza emerged to me as a pleasant surprise, since I had not heard it live since the Storm On World Tour concert in The Hague that I attended. Contradanza is a fine piece that proofed to do very well in a live show, especially since the arrangements for the accompanying support differed considerable form the album original. Destiny with all the vibrancy and dynamics always brings spectacle and enthusiasm into the venue.

The third is acoustic for the violin part again. Pasha is fine. Superb are always the oldies I Am A Doun and Bach Street Prelude. The past years, Vanessa-Mae always skipped the vocal introductory part and she did so for this concert, but the soaring violin makes you feel the sorrow and moaning of the young girl who was left by her lover through all your bones and heart. Vanessa-Mae is always fantastic on violin in passing emotions to the listener. Emerald Tiger was great too, adequately accompanied by band and string section, Vanessa-Mae managed very well to rise her sound over the dynamics and power of the others. Bach Street Prelude has always been one of my top favourites at concerts of Vanessa-Mae. She introduced the song by telling to keep a good look at all the attributes the percussionist would use to accompany her, the percussionist was seated at the edge of the stage and Vanessa-Mae kneeled down next to him - at other concerts she often sat down with her legs over the edge of the stage but with the fine long red dress this would be impossible and it was more appropriate for her to simple kneel down! The song then evolves form a quite start into a spectacular game for both Vanessa-Mae and the percussionist to outplay the other in speed end dynamics. Bach Street Prelude is always sheer joy to witness and Vanessa-Mae clearly enjoys it too as can be learnt from the expressions and smiles on her perfect visage when the charming one sided dimple on her right cheek shows. Photos 20 to 25 below were made during Bach Street Prelude and hopefully support sufficiently what is written above about this song.

Tribal Gathering is possible the most complex track on the album Choreography. Vanessa-Mae did not play it in London, nor in Dresden. This evening, she and all other musicians delivered spectacular rendition of the song that differed substantially from the album original.

Noticeable, Vanessa-Mae varied arrangements used for this concert compared to the originals as they are on the albums on many points. I think this shows that she has grown into a capability to improvise more and more. Known is that Tribal gathering originated from improvisations in the studio between Vanessa-Mae and co-composer Walter Taieb. If Vanessa-Mae succeeds in continuing this trend, her music and concerts can only gain strength and depth.

The final part of the concert consisted of her well known and famous classics Toccata & Fugue, Red Hot and Storm. There were no surprises here and these 3 songs preserve their power and bring excitement through he audiences at all Vanessa-Mae's concerts. Probable, she never gets over playing these songs that made her the world star that she is today. Obviously she doesn't mind judging to the joy she always exudes when playing them. The concert ended with one encore, being a nice replay of Sabre Dance, this time Vanessa-Mae was accompanied by the clapping of an audience showing Vanessa-Mae thanks for a fine concert evening

4 Photos of of the concert
The photos below are only a first selection of the many photos that I made during the concert. More will be shown on short notice.

Photo 1 the  Laeiszhalle
Photo 2-5 Vanessa-Mae at the start of the concert
Photo 7-8 Vanessa-Mae during her addresses to the audience holding her acoustic violin
Photo 9-13 Vanessa-Mae playing her Guadagnini violin
Photo 14 Vanessa-Mae addressing the audience holding her Zeta violin
Photo 15-17 Vanessa-Mae playing
Photo 20-25 Vanessa-Mae and the percussionist during Bach Street Prelude

photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4 photo 5
photo 6 photo 7 photo 8 photo 9 photo 10
photo 11 photo 12 photo 13 photo 14 photo 15
photo 16 photo 17 photo 18 photo 19 photo 20
photo 21 photo 22 photo 23 photo 24 photo 25

copyrights of the text VMSPOS @ http://www.vanessa-mae.nu, Groningen, The Netherlands, 2007