History of the TOURCHESTER

The TOURCHESTER LICH was founded as the „Feuerwehrkapelle Lich“  more than 75 years ago. Since then, many problems had to be solved and many concerts have been played. The band had organized a lot of concert-tours to France, Austria, the former „GDR“, Italy and so on. In 1993 one of the musicians (Andreas Moeschl) talked to his uncle, who lives in Vancouver B.C. (Canada), and they asked themselves, why the band shouldn’t come to the states for some concerts. After one year of finding hosts, looking for good spots for concerts and so on, the band flew to Vancouver in 1994 for the first time. Hosted by the Highschoolband of Hope B.C. and the King County Firedepartment #10 in Issaquah (near Seattle) they have found a large crowd of new friends and fans. One member of the group was married to a lady from Issaquah one year later !

In 1996 the band did a short trip to the southern part of France, where a young lady lives, who has played in the band while she went to university in Gießen (8 miles from Lich) for one year. There also, the band has found a lot of friends and received the invitation for the next year.

In 1997 the next Tour took place, again to Issaquah, including a fantastic trip to the Okanagan Valley. 6 members of the french band, which the band visited one year ago, went with the group, even when they didn’t talk german or english !

The Tour in 2000 was the best concerning the trips and the concerts. The band played an Oktoberfest in Seattle for the Austrian Club in the Swedish Club, the German-American Chamber of Commerce and the German Club and some days later they where the main attraction in the Issaquah Salmon Days Parade 2000. This year’s trip took the group into the famous Olympic National Park where the Rainforest lives.

In 2001 the band drove to France again to be part of the city-Fest in late July.

In 2003 the band (together with some fans, together 40 people) had to beat its biggest demands. It was part of the 2003 Steuben Parade in New York City and had to play two octoberfests for the German Club in Clark and the German-American Social Club in Peekskill with more than 2000 enthusiastic visitors each. Sightseeingtrips to Toronto (Canada), the Niagara Falls, the birthplace of the U.S., Philadelphia and to the residence of the U.S. Government Washington D.C. were very impressive.

In october 2004 the TOURCHESTER had been selected to play the 30th anniversary of the Sister-City-Jubilee between Dieulefit (France) and Lich in France.

Right now, the TOURCHESTER exists since 1993 and has more than 60 musicians from 21 different german orchestras.

In 2005 we did a concert-tour to the small French city “La Bâtie Neuve”, where we were the opener for a europeen music-festival.

In 2006 we saw Phoenix (AZ), Las Vegas (NV), Los Angeles (CA) and San Francisco (CA) as the destinations of the 2006-concerttour. Between oct 13 and 31 the group played several octoberfests in Phoenix (Margaret T. Hance Park, Leisure World in Mesa, Mesa Regal R.V. Park). Seightseeingtrips to Grand Canyon, Death Valley and the famous Highway Nr. 1 at the pacific offered a very welcome variety. A Highlight was a concert in the Las Vegas Hofbraeuhaus, where we “tapped the keg” together with “the Beatles” (at least their Cover from Mirage-Casino).

After this successful tour to the American Wild West we thought about doing something else in 2009. This came together with a concert-tour to Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa. We played concerts for the German old-age-home in Pretoria, for the Paulaner-Garden in Cape Town and several other nice locations. Besides that we were able to see the beauty of Africa and their Plants and Animals. But also we were caught back to the ground when we saw the poor people living in the Slums and helped raising some funds to UTHANDO.

The 7^th tour in 2012 took the Band “Back to the Roots” – to most of the places, we visited during our first 3 tours – mainly to Vancouver and Seattle-region and especially to our friends in Issaquah from Eastside Fire & Rescue, formerly called King County Fire District #10 who we visited 3 times and were there also happened a wedding between those 2 cities of Issaquah and Lich. We played concerts in the “Deutsches Haus” in Vancouver, in the Masonic Hall in Seattle, at Castlegar, BC with our friends from the Fire Department for the Austrian Club and in Leavenworth, WA for the City Administration.

The 8^th Tour in 2015 took us to Curitiba, Blumenau (the 2^nd largest Oktoberfest in the world), Foz de Iguacu and Rio de Janeiro in Brasil with a group of 58 people including 38 musicians from all over Germany, from Canada and from the United States of America.

The 2018-TOUR (Nr. 9) took us to Toronto (visiting the exiting city and the Niagara Falls and playing several concerts in the region (Oktoberfest in HANSA-Haus in Mississauga, Farmers-Market in Brampton)), to Ottawa (the capital of Canada, to Montreal (with a concert at and with the Alexander-von-Humboldt-School), to the frenchest city in Canada Quebec-City, then on to New York City and Washington D.C.

Since 2019 TOURCHESTER is a regular German "Verein". We are very happy about this.

The plans for 2021 are to fly to Southafrica again to meet with the friendly people, see the wild animals and help UTHANDO.

The orchestra offers a rich variety of music from the famous Ernst Mosch up to the well-known James Last.

Music connects the world !

When you are planning concerts, parties or an Octoberfest somewhere in the world, please feel free to contact the TOURCHESTER:

tourchester@tourchester.org

http://www.tourchester.org

When you have more questions please contact:

Andreas Möschl

Denkmalsweg 6

35428 Langgoens-Cleeberg

Germany

+49-162-450 3897