PROJECTS
STRÖER BROS. & HOWARD FINE - homeward - A Neo Chamber Opera
Release January 2022
STRÖER BROS. & TOM HAUSER - BACKSTAGE CINEMA
Backstage Cinema - Live
STRÖER BROS. & HOWARD FINE - VOODOO TRAVEL
In Bus We Trust! - A Road Musical for the 21. Century
Ströer Bros. & Fine – VOODOO TRAVEL
Ströer Bros. and Howard Fine unveil their new musical imaginarium
Ströer Bros. & Fine were awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize in 1985 for their debut album NOMADEN. It was a starting ignition. The Ströer Bros. went on to become successful music producers (Udo Lindenberg), composers of music for films (Die Manns, Buddenbrooks), concert & studio musicians (Passport, Drumlesson) and authors (Das Musikhörbuch), but they never lost sight of their first collaborative project. They and Howard Fine spent ten full years creating the sequel to their exceptional first album. Now, a quarter of a century after NOMADEN, the second album from Ströer Bros. & Fine – VOODOO TRAVEL – is available at amazon.de and iTunes.
VOODOO TRAVEL is a cosmic trip in a rickety bus, a glimpse behind the glittering façade of consensus reality, a quest for life’s eternal truths – the next chapter of the Magical Mystery Tour.
In Bus We Trust!
A motley group of seeking souls waits at the bus stop. Howard Fine, alternately their reckless driver, gruff tour guide, cunning prestidigitator and wise shaman, must have promised them plenty: insight, enlightenment, perhaps even redemption at the end of the road? None but he has read the fine print in the travel group’s contract, so surprises are in store for the pilgrims….
As the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come lead miserly Scrooge, so does Fine lead the beguiled travelers to the most widely diverse sites: an abandoned mining town, an American bar, an airstrip somewhere in the desert, a research laboratory, a dance palace, a black sand beach…. The pilgrims encounter spirits and demons, augurs and oracles, angels and zombies. Animals advise them and they participate in peculiar rites. Will they find what they’re seeking? Will they ultimately find themselves – and if so, where?
Behind the Set
Fifteen chapters – fifteen stations – fifteen songs: the scenes change with the greatest of ease. The transitions could be called cinematic, were it not for the fact that the Ströers, rather than remaining behind the scenes as invisible stagehands, take impish delight in appearing unexpectedly. Time and again, the gears of this bizarre theatrum mundi can be heard groaning and creaking. Then, for a moment, the rough boards of this makeshift stage come into view, along with the smoke, the mirrors and the false bottom. It’s a casually virtuosic play with reality and appearance, waking life and dream, a turbulent voyage between high-flying visions and the banalities of the seemingly mundane.
Metafizzical Muzzic
Hans P. and Ernst Ströer have always been musical nomads. They draw from an enormous reservoir of experiences in the use of words and images – the list of their works for film and theater is long indeed.
For VOODOO TRAVEL, they have taken total artistic freedom in their choice of the appropriate musical means to give each story its appropriate impact or tenderness, its secure or uncertain footing. They explore new forms of interplay among music, the spoken word and singing, and they continue to juggle jazz elements, pop refrains, funky grooves, sound collages, choral settings, film-music sequences, handmade and programmed components until everything reassembles itself as though guided by a ghostly invisible hand, kaleidoscopic yet self-consistent. The results are suggestive soundtracks to accompany Howard Fine’s phantasmagorical world of ideas.
Rhap Poetry
Howard Fine – born and bred in New York, poet, dancer, vocal artist and shaman – is the voice at the center of VOODOO TRAVEL. RHAP is his signature invention – a unique blend of epic narration, recitative incantation and pulsating rap.
His libretto is an elegantly wacky wordwork combining confessional pathos, laconic irony and melancholic reverie on the one hand with twilit scenarios, surreal imagery and profound visions on the other.
Hungry Ghosts
Singers Stefan Schwerdtfeger, Veronika Zunhammer and Anders Holte are the voices of the travelers aboard the bus. Each alternately takes center stage as soloist, slips into various roles, or joins with the others as a chorus.
The musical companions on VOODO TRAVEL are Roberto di Gioia (synthesizers and piano), Walter Weh (soprano and alto saxophone, transverse flute), Claus Reichstaller (trumpet, flugelhorn), Jan Baruschke and Almuth Siegel (violins).
Ilusion Records 2010
CD "VOODOO TRAVEL" can be ordered here: www.stroerbrosmedia.de
STRÖER BROS. & HOWARD FINE - NOMADEN
LP and Live-Act of STRÖER BROS with Howard Fine. Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.
Mood Records 1985.
1987 NOMADEN IN CONCERT TV Live Appearance "Live aus dem Alabama“ in Munich.
Feature "Nomaden" Ströer Bros. & Howard Fine 1987
1987 South-East-Asia Tour for the Goethe-Institut (German Cultural Institute). Conzerts in Singapur, Bangkok, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Surabaya, Bandung und Jacarta.
CD "NOMADEN" can be ordered here: www.stroerbrosmedia.de
STRÖER DUO - FLUCHTWEG MADAGASKAR
"Fluchtweg Madagaskar" bei 2001
FLUCHTWEG MADAGASKAR can be ordered here: www.stroerbrosmedia.de
NERV
Biber Records 1981. LP and Live-Act.
"Nerv" - CD-Kritik von Robert Lyng
TREFFPUNKT IM UNENDLICHEN
Corona 1984. Original Soundtrack from the film by Horst Königstein.
REICHSHAUPTSTADT PRIVAT
Ilusion/Colosseum 1987. Original Soundtrack from the film by Horst Königstein.
SCRATCH GERMANY
1988. Vinyl-Album with music for the KunstDisco Seoul.
HARD DAYS, HARD NIGHTS
RCA 1990. Original Soundtrack from the cinefilm by Horst Königstein.
THE SILENT YEARS 1985 - 1992
1992. Double-CD with music for film & theatre
Horst Königstein über Ströer Bros.
EINMAL CASANOVA SEIN
stroerbrosmedia 2005. Music by Hans P. Ströer from the theaterplay by U. Mayer, U. Tukur und U. Waller, Hamburger Kammerspiele 1997.
EINMAL CASANOVA SEIN can be ordered here: www.stroerbrosmedia.de
DIE MANNS - EIN JAHRHUNDERTROMAN
stroerbrosmedia 2005. Original Soundtrack by Hans P. Ströer for the Docu-Drama by H. Breloer.
DIE MANNS Original Soundtrack can be ordered here: www.stroerbrosmedia.de
SPEER UND ER
stroerbrosmedia 2005. Original Soundtrack by Hans P. Ströer for the Docu-Drama by H. Breloer.
SPEER UND ER Original Soundtrack can be ordered here: www.stroerbrosmedia.de
ZU FRANZ HUMMELS OPERN
First book to be released by the Hans P. und Ernst Ströer Musikverlag, edited by Hans and Gabriele Turner 1988. Artists and authors response to the works of german composer Franz Hummel.
CHRISTIAN ROSS
Exibition catalogues
EVENTS
REICHSHAUPTSTADT REVUE
ARD 1986. Musical Revue for the german TV, flanking the 2-part series "Reichshauptstadt Privat“ by Horst Königstein featuring PETER GABRIEL, CHRISTOPH WALTZ and TOM ROBINSON. Musical Directors: STRÖER BROS.
HEIMATABEND
NDR 1990. TV-Comedy by Horst Königstein and Ulrich Waller. Musical Directors: STRÖER BROS.
ATLANTISCHER WILDWECHSEL
Performance of STRÖER BROS. for the Goethe-Medaille Award Ceremony for Billy Wilder and Istvan Szabo in Weimar 1994.
AN DEN MOND
Goethe-Institut Munich 1997. Performance of STRÖER BROS. with Celia Elsdörfer on the occasion of the retirement of Dr. Horst Harnischfeger.
CONTRAPUNKT
Goethe-Forum Munich 2002. Performance of STRÖER BROS. with Howard Fine
SINGLES-COUPLES (Arbeitstitel)
Goethe-Institut Athens 2004. Conception of the Official German Contribution to the Olympic Summer Games in Athens. Not realized due to security problems.
