Singery
"Dwarsgetuigd"
Six years ago a few sailing enthousiasts
from the village of Nuenen (perhaps better known because of Van Gogh)
after visiting an English harbour pub decided that Nuenen should have a
shanty choir. Surprisingly it took little time to get together about
twenty applicants and so on 22 September 1997 a start was made. In less
than two years the membership rose to fifty and then it was decided to
grow no further.
The name "Dwarsgetuigd" means
"Square-rigged" and refers not only to ships but also to a
certain contrariness for which the people of Nuenen are known and which is
described by the Dutch word
"dwars". It may look odd to have a shanty choir in a place about
120 km from the sea, but it should be mentioned that about half of our
members owns a boat and spends many summer weekends on the seaside. Another
peculiarity is that we don't want to be called a choir, so we invented the
word "Singery" (in Dutch "Zingerij") to describe
ourselves and our activities.
Under the able and enthousiastic direction of
Horst
Rickels the group has built up a repertoire of about 50 shanties and
forebitters and has given many performances. Our goal is to sing
the old shanties, not as a static choir, but adding a bit of drama to recreate
the work environment on the old sailing ships in which these shanties were used.
From August 2006 until the end of 2008 he has been succeeded by the enthousiastic Reinout
Godschalk under whose direction the musical show "Jonas"
(see below) was staged. Since 1 January 2009 Horst is back as
our director. The Singery is a member of the International Shanty and Sea Song Association
and Shanty Nederland,
see the Links at the bottom of the page.
Our singing is accompanied by an old-fashioned accordion, played by Jan Verlinden who also happens to be an avid
collector of literature about the history of sailing.
In the fall of 2000 the first CD (CD1)
with a selection from our repertoire has been produced and in 2004 the
second one (CD2), even better, saw
the light. In 2007 we performed a musical show "Jonas"
which tells the story of whalermen hunting near Alaska and relaxing
afterwards on a South Sea island.
Watch pictures and videos of
our performances on the page "Pictures"
and subpages.
See us also on Youtube :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFR7CLToRjE
(Den Bosch Maritime 2009, this is the same as the one on the homepage)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGH4aVoJ03M
(Vlissingen
(Flushing) 28-08-2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsvDN6_cqfw&feature=related
(sailing trip IJsselmeer
28-05-2010)
Public Appearances
