Flutes, violins, piano, guitars and church organ are the instruments that the colorful troupe use on certain occasions – now again in the musical Advent calendar 2022 on YouTube. Support also comes from some professional musicians.

The “young” participants are between six and 84 years old: Anna and Jakob Wallmann, Finni Gerschpacher, Moritz, Elena and Elisa Eichberger, Rosbil, Kogla, Amelia, Cecilia and Claudia Makanzu, Noah and Naemi Luritzhofer, Florentina, Korbinian and Elisabeth Staudinger , Josef Mages, Lea and Simeon Reiffinger, Zoltan Laluska, Takanari and Marine Koyama, Georgi Varbanov, Noriko Crawford, Rebecca and Gerhard Reiffinger senior as well as members of the NAK Choir.

Reflections on last year: Screenshots of the musical advent calendar 2021 …

How it all began

The Salzburg choir director and NAK church musician Christian Reiffinger has been a member of the ensemble for 38 years. He has been leading this private church choir on a voluntary basis for around 16 years and the children’s choir for around 24 years. When politicians at federal and state level imposed the first Advent lockdown in 2020, the group got into musical difficulties. There were no more rehearsals or singing – like so many other projects in culture and sport.

From whatsapp group to youtube channel

Reiffinger thought about how he could continue to some extent the effort and practice that had been put in place over the years, despite the many state bans – also to keep the singers motivated. In addition, it is about saving the choir and the children with sheet music and didactic information. The first step was via a WhatsApp group: “However, not all choir singers had enough capacity for saved downloads on their cell phones,” says Reiffinger.

That’s how his wife came into play: “She pointed out to me that we could make the song material available to the choir for practicing on our own YouTube channel.”

“Homesinging” as a secret weapon

In addition, the individual voices in alto, tenor and bass were also recorded as videos, says the project manager: “The rehearsals – our ‘Home Singing’ – went on surprisingly well. At least the choir didn’t have to be disbanded. It’s been around for 83 years. That would have been a shame.”

The first door opens on Sunday

The meanwhile well-established YouTube channel will now be used again until Christmas Musical advent calendar 2022

The group played a first informational video on the channel on Friday evening. And tomorrow, Sunday, November 27th, today the first Sunday in Advent, the first door of the calendar will open – with a reading by project founder Reiffinger. This year he also wants to base his work on texts by the Salzburg writer Karl-Heinrich Waggerl.