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• The Hans Schmelzer Music Award will provide grants to local high school or college music programs, and also to a deserving music student, to promote the study of mid-European folk, classical, and popular music. The award was established to honor Mr. Hans Schmelzer, the founder and Kapellmeister Emeritus of the German-American Brass Band of Southern California, who recently celebrated his 91st birthday. The initial grants have been funded for 2011, however donations to help fund the award for additional grants are being accepted and are tax deductible. Donation Forms are available on-line. Make sure to mark "Schmelzer Award" on your Donation Form in order to designate it specifically for the grant fund. If you represent an ensemble, or are a student wishing to apply for the award, get all the information and forms you need by clicking here.
• Music makes learning German easier, so if you’re learning to speak German (or even just enjoy good German music) you might want to have the newly released Vol. 1 of Learning German Through Song in your digital library. This volume is based on Weihnachts Gruesse aus Los Angeles, a collection of popular German and American Christmas carols, which was recorded by Herbert Schwarz in 1982 and originally released on an LP. Accompanying Mr. Schwarz were a number of area musicians, including a brass choral group composed of musicians from the German-American Brass Band. The collection has recently been masterfully digitized and is now available to download at www.LearningGermanThroughSong.com. Additional volumes, that will include Oktoberfest songs, folk & children’s songs, and others, will be available in the coming months. Mr. Schwarz, better known in the German community as "The Herbmeister", is the popular MC at Old World in Huntington Beach and is a well known celebrity at the Oktoberfest and other celebrations. If you order the download, please put "BrassBand" in the second address line and Mr. Schwarz will make a donation to the Alemannia Music Foundation in your name. Listen to music samples from the collection:    O Tannenbaum     O du Foehliche    Suesser die Glocken nie klingen
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The Don Bosco Technical Institute Concert Band
Congratulations to the Don Bosco Technical Institute Concert Band as recipient of the 2011 Hans Schmelzer Music Award! The Alemannia Music Foundation has selected the Don Bosco Technical Institute Concert Band (Rosemead, California), as a recipient of the Ensemble Component of the 2011 Hans Schmelzer Music Award.  The award was made in recognition of the efforts being made at the school to develop its music program and provide students the opportunity to study the music of Central and Eastern Europe.  The award includes a $600 grant to be used by the school for its music program. The award selection committee cited the coming performance of the Academic Festival Overture by Johannes Brahms by the Bosco Tech Concert Band as an excellent example of the music of Central and Eastern Europe that has helped shape contemporary and classical music development.  In a letter to Daniel Almanza, Bosco Tech Director of Bands, the committee stated, “We know that by studying and performing such music, your students will have a greater appreciation for the origins all genres of modern music and will have a broader awareness of the rich spectrum of music from around the world.”  The performance was held at the school’s Tech Hall on May 19, 2011.
Kurt Star (left), representing the AMF, congratulates Daniel Almanza (right), Bosco Tech Director of Bands, on achieving the Hans Schmelzer Music Award.
• The AMF proudly sponsored and funded the North American premiere of Moritz Eggert′s Processional: Three Marches and Progression performed by the CSU San Bernardino Symphonic Band directed by Dr. Jeffrey Boeckman. The music debuted at a concert in the Performing Arts Recital Hall, on the CSU San Bernardino campus, on March 16, 2011. Moritz Eggert has attracted increasing interest as writer of engaging, theatrical, and approachable music. Born in 1965 in Heidelberg, he was educated at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Munich and the Guildhall School in Music in London and has won a number of prominent international awards. His large Soccer Oratorio for the Ruhrtriennale 2005 and his music for the opening ceremonies of the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany attracted widespread media coverage in Germany as well as foreign media. The recital hall was filled with several hundred music lovers, including the president of the German-American League of Los Angeles and other invited guests of the AMF.
• Musicians interested in joining the AMF are invited to contact us for more information on joining our performance activity, the German-American Brass Band of Southern California.