Christopher Street Day Parade 2018

It was a hot day in Stuttgart on Saturday, July 28, as the colorful parade made its way from the Erwin-Schöttle Platz to the Schiller Platz through the crowded streets lined with partying onlookers.
In contrast to many other parades here in Germany, the interaction between the marchers and the watchers is in no way hindered. If you recognize a friend coming down the street, you can go over and give him or her a kiss and take a selfie. Kids are given candy as on Halloween in the US or Karneval here, and after the two-hour spectacle I had been given various business cards by drag queens, invitations and coupons for visits to a couple of dungeons and stickers saying "Süßer Typ" or "I love vaginas". What a day!

But I wasn't there for that. I wanted to take pictures with my friends Andy and Conny (above), as we had done last year.
The parade opened with Dykes on Bykes and then Dudes on BMWs. Even with the same light, you can process "his and her" bikes differently to give them a different look.

Every year promises a new motto and new costumes, even if many of the paraders are the same. It's great to see how much effort goes into the get-ups.

Perfect hair and make-up - and elaborate wings for good measure!

Visiting friends on the sidelines

Retro black-and-white costumes

Every year this drag queen has an elaborate costume. This year the diesel scandal is in focus.

Masks and chains and leashes? Check.

Butterfly eye-candy

The viewer in leather says it all with his facial expression.

Some of the best things in life are free. 

I wonder if the bishops ever imagined a parade like this would ever pass by the heavenward spires of St. Maria.

Two for the price of one

Her teenager has grown up.

All in all it is a peaceful - yet very loud - and friendly event.

 

Should scenes like this cause you concern, this parade is not for you.

 

The Christopher Street Day Political Parade is an even for posers and photographers.

How can you draw the most attention to yourself? It seems the higher, the better.

Different strokes

Family is...what we make of it!!!

There is a human being behind every mask. (Now that's a notion worthy of a thesis!)

This gentleman is at all the parades and would  be deemed under-dressed elsewhere.

Drink up!

The rainbow faction has its day.

The twins from our neighborhood support the message that all people should be treated equally.

Starkes Blech 2019

Two years ago I marked the dates June 7-8, 2019, on my virtual calendar. Starkes Blech is one of my favorite concert events in Stuttgart. It is overwhelming to hear 300 brass players being led through music from Wagner to The Scorpions - with a world premiere performance of a new work every time to boot! If that weren't enough, the courtyard of the Old Castle in Stuttgart serves as the perfect setting.

Christof Schmidt begins the public rehearsal on the evening before the final concert. 

What to focus on? There is always so much going on during the concerts that you need to pay attention to everything.

Finally it's showtime. Months of rehearsals with individual ensembles and tutti meetings are about to pay off for the hundreds of listeners.

The program for 2019 included music from over 500 years, including Luther, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Debussy and Wagner (both in moving arrangements by bass trombonist Tobias Rägle).

For the final encore Christof Schmidt conducted the players and the audience in a tutti version of "Der Mond ist aufgegangen". Each verse was played in a different arrangement. The first was by the German father of the brass choir movement, Johannes Kuhlo. The second was arranged by Traugott Fünfgeld, a contemporary composer of sacred music who has written several pieces played in Stuttgart over the past decade. Music for the final stanza was arranged by the initiator of Starkes Blech, Hans Holzwarth.

Brass, brass and more brass!

Those of you who know Hans Holzwarth are aware of how incredibly enthusiastic he is about his music projects. He initiated Starkes Blech in Stuttgart back in 1999, which is now a bi-annual concert in the courtyard of the Old Castle downtown.
This past spring he gathered the musicians from his Variate Brass Ensemble and added to this nine-person band a contrabassoonist and arranged two hours of music for them. The result of all the rehearsals was enjoyed by an appreciative audience at the Lukaskirche in Stuttgart-Ost on March 23, 2019.

At one point Hans was conducting while playing percussion. The multi-instrumentalist was a bass soloist with regional choirs, leads the Posaunenchor Ost, plays the flugelhorn in brass ensembles, and arranges music for his various ensembles with an amount of enthusiasm that I have rarely seen in anyone. He also conducted a brass choir concert at the train station in Stuttgart every Christmas Eve for 38 years until his retirement in 2015.