The Swingin’ Hermlins
ANDREJ HERMLIN and his SWING DANCE ORCHESTRA
“The Music Goes Round And Around”
What would be more important in life than not losing hope?
Back when the pandemic began, when theaters and concert halls closed, many artists faced an existential crisis. Some despaired of no longer being able to perform, others were driven out of anger into the streets.
We decided to counteract all this with a sign of hope.
Almost every evening since March 15, 2020, THE SWINGIN’ HERMLINS have presented authentic swing from the 30s on social media for half an hour – in changing small line-ups, with friends, with musicians who loved Benny Goodman, or Basie, or Miller , or Lunceford.
Our total of 800 daily broadcasts “The Music Goes Round And Around” on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram were followed by thousands of people from America, Asia and Europe!
This community of enthusiastic spectators calls themselves “Hermlinville”.
The “New York Times”, the “Guardian”, the “ZDF aktuell journal”, the “Deutsche Welle”, the “Forbes Magazine”, the “Los Angeles Times”, the “Focus”, the “Welt” reported on all of this and many other media outlets.
Our broadcasts will continue.
THE SWINGIN’ HERMLINS produced several albums during the time of lockdowns and performance bans, published a book and played wherever it was possible (and sometimes impossible…).
The “Hermlinville Times”, an extraordinary new cultural newspaper, has been published since January 2021, edited by the well-known photographer Uwe Hauth and Andrej Hermlin.
Finally, in the summer of 2022, the SWING DANCE ORCHESTRA, which has been one of the most important swing big bands in the world for the past two decades, returned to the stages of major concert halls.
In the meantime, ANDREJ HERMLIN and his SWING DANCE ORCHESTRA and our “band within the band” THE SWINGIN’ HERMLINS have performed many performances together.
In our new concert program “The Music Goes Round And Around” we present American music from the 20s, 30s and early 40s, as authentic as it is happy, sometimes quite crazy. Everything is live, spontaneous and alive!
The band plays – except for the vocals – unamplified, as was usual at the time.
Wardrobe, desks, microphones, instruments are originals or perfect copies.
In addition to famous pieces such as the “Moonlight Serenade”, “Caravan” and “Loch Lomond”, the orchestra’s repertoire also includes many lesser-known titles that we consider to be worthwhile to rediscover.
The SWING DANCE ORCHESTRA has changed drastically in one point: the arrangements now come almost exclusively from the pens of our musicians, especially David Hermlin, who has given the orchestra a fresh, unmistakable sound. Other musicians such as Malte Tönissen, Daniel Duspiwa and Lars Juling also contributed their own arrangements.
The idea behind it: to no longer perform mere copies of original arrangements from the 30s and 40s, but – as was actually common back then – to play their own versions of successful melodies and surprise the audience.
Meanwhile, the “musical revolution” continues!
The orchestra is now also increasingly playing its own compositions, such as “Swing Is On Parade” (David Hermlin), “Sweet And Softly” (Malte Tönissen) and “Here I Am” (Andrej Hermlin).
And so we carry the message of hope into the world – because what else could swing be than this: hope!
“Instead of looking into the lenses of cameras, we are looking into people’s faces again. What a great feeling!
We want to thank our listeners. And we give them something back:
Our love for swing music, a nice solo, a great song – and a smile…”
The Music Goes ‘Round And Around!
