Gumpoldskirchen, a wine-growing village 30 km south of Vienna, is, sometimes, also called the "Capital of Choirs" of Lower Austria. Therefore it is neither a surprise that many singers have already sung in more than one of the 7 choirs of Gumpoldskirchen, nor that new choirs come into being all the time. In 1989, NOTA BENE was founded. The special thing about this choir is, that it consists of 5 couples:

Susanna (alto) and Johannes (tenor, choirmaster) Dietl
Rosemarie (soprano) and Horst (bass) Biegler
Ingrid (soprano) and Willi (tenor) Schedlbauer
Ilse (alto) and Martin (tenor) Stingl
Helga (alto, representative) and Josef "Joe" (bass) Tötzl

In the first place, NOTA BENE cultivate original Austrian and international folk music, but also sing, with great success, spirituals and contemporary music.

NOTA BENE mainly is to be heard in the immediate vicinity of Gumpoldskirchen, but they also have had concerts in Vorarlberg, Styria, Slovakia and Belgium. Highlights of NOTA BENE's history were two tours of Texas in 1994 and 2000. Invited by various choirs in which immigrants from Austria and Germany as well as their descendants cultivate their musical heritage, NOTA BENE had successful and acclaimed concerts in Dallas, Austin, Tyler, San Antonio, Schulenburg and Houston. Particularly popular are NOTA BENE's concerts during Advent in Gumpoldskirchen's church, where the harmony of the 10 voices can be heard to its best advantage.

In November 2004, NOTA BENE celebrated it's 15th anniversary with two sold-out concerts. A new programme, spiced with special surprises, once again entertained an enthusiastic audience, who were treated to a rhymed review by the the choir's "chronologist", Horst Biegler, who also presented the statistical facts: in approximately 700 rehearsals, the choir worked on 190 songs that were presented at almost 200 concerts.

NOTA BENE also made themselves a special birthday present - 6 years after a first collection of traditional Christmas songs, the second CD "Es kommt eine frohe Zeit" was completed. It again contains several of the lesser known songs that make Christmas time so contemplative and atmospheric.


The success confirms the singer's theme:

For the Joy
of Singing


Listening samples from our Christmas-CDs:
"Es kommt eine frohe Zeit" (2004)
"Alle Jahr um die Zeit..." (1998)

Listening Samples from our current Concert Programme
History
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