First show after Hannelore’s death
Heino appears in Dresden
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Around two weeks have passed since Hannelore Kramm’s death. Now her husband wants to be on stage again for the first time since this stroke of fate. In the evening Heino performs at a church concert in Dresden.
“Heino now needs the affection, comfort and sympathy of his fans to ease his immense pain.” This is how Heino’s manager explained last week why the folk musician took up the singing microphone again in public around two weeks after the death of his wife Hannelore: On Friday evening, Heino will perform in Dresden’s Kreuzkirche as part of this year’s church tour “Die Himmel rühmen”.
The concert will certainly be highly emotional for the 84-year-old, said Werner. “But he really wants to return to the stage because Hannelore would have wanted him to continue singing.”
With a view to his concerts, Heino explained shortly before Hannelore’s death that he had given up regular singing exercises on tour. “I used to do that more often, but not anymore.” Heino admitted: “If I stand on stage every day, I don’t practice.” Things looked different in the time before: “At home, the scale goes up, then down again, so that everything starts moving again.”
Tour start postponed
It is certainly questionable whether he has had the opportunity to do so in the past few days. Hannelore Kramm, his wife’s full real name, died on November 8th. However, her death only became public days later because the singer wanted to say a quiet goodbye to the woman he was married to for 44 years.
Because of Heino’s grief, the start of the 2023/2024 European church tour was postponed by a week. According to the singer’s homepage, 15 performances are planned until the beginning of February in Germany, Austria and Belgium – including two more in Saxony: in the Luther Church in Görlitz and the Philippus Church in Leipzig.
After 250 concerts in places of worship in the past, Heino has famous accompaniment this time: the Norwegian soprano Anita Hegerland, who sang a famous duet with Roy Black as a child and later sang two world hits with Mike Oldfield.
Although he comes from a “very Catholic family,” he rarely goes to church, explained Heino. His grandfather played the organ in Cologne Cathedral and two cousins became pastors. “So I was always closely connected to the church.” As a young man, he went there almost every day. “That was easy too, the church was right across from where we lived.” When Hannelore visited a new city, the first thing they did was go to church and light a candle there.
