Report from André Rieu Photographer Contest Winner!

Calgary Concert Report

From an 'Official Photographer' Winner!

I have been to the Calgary Concert and what a concert it was! I was the lucky one that was chosen to be the "Official Photographer" and got 2 tickets and a camera. I could hardly wait to leave the house to go to the concert. I took my cousin who had never been to an André Rieu concert before but likes his music.

When we came to the box office the tickets and the camera were all ready for me. With some picture I.D. they gave it to me. So, we went in, looked for our seats, right in front of the stage (row eight, seats 22 and 23) It could not have been better! We sat down and who did I see? John and Bobbie de Jong from California.

I went to say hello and met Marthijn Graafland who sent me the email saying that I won The Official Photographer Contest. John took some pictures of me and I took some pictures of them. And then the concert started.

André came up the isle as usual waving to the people. One of the songs they played was the “Skaters Waltz”. He started to explain how much snow they had in Maastricht and that we, Calgarians, would not understand it. Boy, all the people started to laugh!!! Right now we can see the mountains from here and are covered with snow already!!

Small snow flakes started to fall on us in the first rows and bit by bit it started to “snow” harder and harder. I told my cousin that it should start to snow more and more because I had seen it on one of Andre’s DVD’s before. And before we knew it, we got a huge load on our heads!!! WE WERE COVERED!!!!!! The people of the Saddle dome sure had some cleaning up to do. Including ALL the balloons coming down!!! Thousands of them!!

I was a bit disappointed that Frank Steins was not there and Ruud, Lynn’s husband and the girl that sits beside Teun. My favourite person Manoe played excellent again as usual! The Encores were very good and André told us to go home again, but played again some more. We enjoyed the concert very much. My cousin LOVED it!!

I took only 72 pictures! One of the pictures I like to show how much “snow” came down. Another one, André told this lady to check her bosom!

The write up in the Calgary Herald was very good. All I can say is, the people that were not there: you sure missed something! Make sure you go see him next time. We had a wonderful time ... Tina

Thanks to Sonja for forwarding this from her friend Tina