Welcome and goodbye!

Due to our anniversary, you received a lot of mail from us last year. Now we're already in the new year, and our newsletter will be back in your inbox with normal frequency.

In this first newsletter in 2025 (of probably four), we would like to tell you about the handover of the baton from our alto singers. We are currently in Hamburg and yesterday we performed in the main hall of the Elbphilharmonie at the “Kammermusikfest! Brahms”. What a magnificent evening and what an exhilarating feeling to stand on this great stage, where even the softest pianissimo is carried right into the last rows. And what a magnificent near-finale with Maria.
Seht for yourself:

After the concert we had the great opportunity to take a photo with a guest of honor. And this photo will probably remain unique, because you can see not only our Maria, who sang the concert with us, but also her successor Johanna.

Dear Johanna, ever since we met you, we have known that you are the right person for the job. Your musicality and your sense of humor have won us over in equal measure and we are looking forward to spending time with you. Welcome to the family!

Johanna is 28 years old and currently still lives in Hamburg, where she works as a church musician.

Maria says:

I wish Johanna so much joy in her new job. It will certainly be an exciting challenge, which I hope you 5 will master with a lot of fun! But I'm absolutely certain of that! May you all grow together!

And this is what Johanna says:

In recent years, I have been a passionate church musician. Ensemble singing has always been my great passion. Being able to live this out intensively now is a big dream come true for me.
I'm really looking forward to making music with you and am very excited about this promising new chapter in my life.

The first concert with Johanna in the alto position will take place on March 16, 2025 in Merseburg. We are very much looking forward to it!

And now we come to the part that is so incredibly difficult for us. We have to say goodbye to our beloved Maria. Anyone who has been to our concerts in recent weeks will know that we have already celebrated farewells at each of these concerts. We wanted to ensure that this event did not come too abruptly and catch us unprepared. Nevertheless, the time has come and we have to admit that there are no words to express how we feel.
Here in public, we keep it very brief:

Dear Maria, thank you for your friendship, your courage and your love! You will remain in our hearts forever. We want photos of your baby every day. And of you of course.

And now Maria herself would like to speak:

Saying goodbye is hard. The feeling that my time with Calmus has now come to an end just won't really sink in. Perhaps because I know that this time will never really be over. We will remain friends, and it is probably well known that we have a really close friendship. What often has to be glossed over on social media is a reality for us. We not only get on exceptionally well on stage, but also beyond it – and I think you can see that in every story, every post and every video.
I will incredibly miss singing on stage with this ensemble and could not have wished for a more crowning finale than singing exclusively Brahms (my favorite composer!!!) in the Elbphilharmonie.
My “Calmäuse”, thank you for your time, your voices and your friendship!
This is not the end!
(I hope for substitutes here and there...)

Our last appearance with Maria is just around the corner. Tomorrow, January 8, we will be live on the radio at 1 pm on the program NDR Kultur EXTRA. It will be recorded in sound and vision and will be available afterwards at www.ndr.de/extra and in the ARD Mediathek.

And after this farewell, we will take a well-deserved vacation of about five weeks. If you miss us in the meantime, you are welcome to listen to our second anniversary concert from last year in the Deutschlandfunk Kultur audio library. Here is the link.

We wish you a wonderful time and we are looking forward to singing for you again soon! A list of upcoming concerts up to and including May can be found at the end of this text.

Your Calmus Ensemble
Elisabeth, Maria, Friedrich, Jonathan and Michael

List of concerts until May 2025:

16.03.2025, 17:00 h, Merseburg/Saale (DE), Stadtkirche St. Maximi
29.03.2025, 19:00 h, Born a. Darß (DE), Fischerkirche
30.03.2025, 14:00 h, Born a. Darß (DE), Fischerkirche (Hochamt)
16.04.2025, 19:00 h, Quedlinburg (DE), St. Nikolai
17.04.2025, 21:00 h, Nordhausen (DE), St. Blasii
18.04.2025, 17:00 h, Erfurt (DE), Reglerkirche
27.04.2025, Torgau (DE), tba
16.05.2025, 20:00 h, Ettenheim (DE), St. Nikolaus
18.05.2025, 17:00 h, Göttingen (DE), St. Norbert Kirche Friedland