Barberellas 2007

It all started in the summer of 1995, when Hedwig Brengmann-Domogalla brought barbershop music to Bonn. She passed out blue flyers asking "Do you like a cappella music?". 17 women came together and founded "Local Vocal", the first barbershop chorus in Bonn. Steffi Bade was our first director, followed by Nicole Ferrein in late 1997. Since March 2002 we rehearse every Wednesday evening under Viola Neuwald-Fernández. By 1999 we had 25 members and changed our name to Barberellas.

Our repertoire includes over 30 songs - lots of barbershop classics like "Heart of my heart", "The moment I saw your eyes" or "Barbershop style", but also popular hits such as "For the longest time" or "It's raining men" and hits from the 1930s such as "Kann denn Liebe Sünde sein" and "Benjamin". . In recent years we sing more and more self-made German texts. "Gib mir den Mann meiner Träume" is a free translation of the ABBA hit "Gimme", and "Wenn ich achtzig bin" stays close to "When I'm sixty-four". But "Bye bye blues" became "Bye bye Heinz", we go shopping "Shoppen" to the tune of "Carolina in the morning" and in "Goodnight, sweetheart" we rave about Tupper boxes.

One of the highlights in the history of our choir was the successful participation in the "2. Leistungsingen des Sängerbund NRW e. V.", a regional competition in Siegen (2001). We are especially proud of our placement at the last two BinG (Barbershop in Germany) conventions in Dortmund. In March 2004 we made 6th place and became a "B-Chorus", the second best category in international barbershop competition (there are no A-Choruses in Europe up to now). In March 2006 we even reached 5th place. We are a prospective member of "Sweet Adelines", the world's largest women's barbershop organization. In March 2008 we achieved the greatest success. We were placed fourth in the championship and won the Crescendo-Cup. This prize is awarded to the choir which has most improved since the last championship. We managed to score 7.5 points more than last time (i.e. we achieved 68.4 percent of the maximum score).

As we are the third best Barbershop choir in Germany we have qualified for the European Barbershop championship. So we will take part in the convention in the Dutch town of Veldhoven in March 2009.

The biggest event in Barberellas history was our 10th anniversary concert in october 2005 in the sold out music café "Harmonie" in Bonn and two concerts in the "Haus der Springmaus" (November 2006 and January 2008), the concert at the festival of museums in the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle (June 2007) and our concert in the course of the Endenicher Herbst (November 2008).

Barberellas 2004