At some point before the Bundestag election in February, Roswitha Schmidt felt a good trouble: “All languages about scapegoats, but nobody really dealt specifically with the AfD election program.” So she decided to “express her criticism about so much inertia. “Anger is directed, she gets a wrong goal. ‘Before a minority: perfect valve.” She put these lines on paper and then a few more verses. “You turn time back” is the title of it, and with this diagnosis the song begins, which the retired teacher is starting with with the Frankfurt complaint choir. “They turn the time back. It should be as before. But whether it was so beautiful in brown times, oh no.” Full of vigor, the ensemble, set up in a semicircle, smashes the words into the room. But Philipp Höhler is not yet satisfied. “Do not sing so chopped off,” the choir director asks the almost 20 singers, who came to the Frankfurt Social Center Marbachweg that evening. Höhler also has the transition to the chorus repeat a few more times. There is not much time until the premiere of the song at the Rödelheim Music Night on May 17th. “Singing”, says Höhler, “is a great valve to dissolve trouble and feelings of fainting.” However, the choir does not see itself as an association of anger. Fun and humor are clearly in the foreground – just like the desire to let everyday life passed by uncommented, value on the right tone and a friendly handling: choir director Philipp Höhlerben Kilbeit 2011, the 62 -year -old musicologist, who works during the day in the German National Library, leads the choir founded in 2009 on the initiative of the Frankfurt Art Association. The topics of the vocal lamenti, which has rehearsed the ensemble over the years, range from purely private annoyance to political grievances: songs to bullying in the office, over the exhaust gas scandal or annoying telephone ranges, about aircraft noise and climate change. A hedge fund song and a crime tango for arms dealers are also part of the repertoire list of the Frankfurt complaint choir. About 140 complaint choirs approach grievances worldwide and turn negative into positive energy: This approach may be unique in the Frankfurt choir scene-it is by no means globally. Already in 2005 in British Birmingham, one of the long -time Frankfurt partner cities, the first ensemble of this kind was founded – “followed by complaint choirs in Helsinki, Hamburg, Saint Petersburg, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Chicago, Teutônia/Brazil and Singapor”, as is on the Ww.P.Plaintschoir.org website Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen is called. Years later, the magazine “New Choir Age” of the German Choir Association “well over a hundred do-it-youselfer complaints about the globe” registered. The German-Finnish artist couple now calls more than 140 complaints that existed worldwide. There is also a Wikipedia entry in the keyword “complaint choir”, this vocal lay lamento, which Anna Vogt from the German Music Council in Berlin calls a “phenomenon”. A phenomenon that could not fit the current year of voice in 2025 – just like his motto “Music and Democracy”. Street festivals and cultural festivals. The singers write the texts of the songs that sound. Not infrequently. Not infrequently, Höhler, will then be filed in the ensemble for a long time: “It can take time, but we don’t want to go over. You always have to find a way to get a way.” Doctians sing with letter delivering in the Frankfurt complaint choir, you don’t want to be able to read or an entrance examination complete. Rather, a flexible nature is an advantage. The most important thing is a friendly cooperation. “I want people to come,” says Höhler. Elisabeth Uloth, 76 years old, also motivates them that everyone and every issue that are important to him or her can bring in and that conflicts are solved with openness. “When I go out here, I am always inspired.” Just like Uloth, who used to work as a chemist, the other singers are amateurs. “Everything is included, from the doctor to the letter deliverer,” says Höhler and thus outlines the range of industries in which the choir members are or were busy. As in many amateur ensembles, the Frankfurt complaint choir also lacks offspring, but Höhler does not want to derive a crisis of the choir system from it. “Young people, in the middle of professional and family life, often don’t have enough time for such a hobby.” So he explains the average age of the ensemble, which is “60 upwards”. The current figures, which the German Choir Association presents, also do not make you think of extinction of the art of singing: there is talk of 700,000 members nationwide in around 13,000 choir concerts annually. “Singing is trendy,” is the conclusion of the association. A motto that also shares the Frankfurt complaint choir in its own way. In -house texts to be known to him finally formulated a lyrics so that everyone can live with it, he is underlaid with an existing melody. “You turn the time back” uses the music of “IF I Could Turn Back Time” by Diane Warren, a song that Cher once performed on her album “Heart of Stone”. Another song of the complaint choir, the “infrastructure Apo-Calypso” about defective lighers, dilapidated bridges and closed medical practices, is sung on the melody of “Rum and Coca-Cola”, a song that became world famous in 1944 with the Andrews Sisters. are called base democratic and fits perfectly with the motto of the current year of the voice. It is quickly clarified who takes over the moderation, who leads the protocol. There are enough open questions. In what order should the nine songs intended to perform in Rödelheim? Why is there no climate song this time? Should the program be moderated or only briefly announced? Then one of the singers confesses: “Learning text is a huge drama for me.” Approving nod all around. In no time at all it is a thing that is decided: until again in a week in a week each singer will memorize a song text of the next program-perhaps the anti-AfD song or those who are about fake news. This song with the words “Fear should be your engine, fear makes anger and courage. Believe what the screen says: What is bad is also good” on the title melody of Henry Mancini on the film comedy “Charade” will be rehearsed that evening. Now the chairs are lined aside. Höhler, who is also a lecturer for voice training at the Frankfurt Volkshochschule, leads the loosening of the neck and neck muscles and singing. “80 percent of the people,” he explains, “it is difficult to breathe deeply into the stomach, open your mouth wide and to give strong sounds. But being loud is important.” Then the moment has finally come when pianist Evelyn Helbig comes into the buttons. As with any meeting, the “complaint choir song” is initially voted. It wrote the first director of the ensemble, the Hans-Joachim Steinbrück, who died in 2015. “Squip your throat, then come to us, to the choir club, which packs the anger into tones,” says this anthem of the ensemble. Actually not a bad recipe for everyday life. In the next line it will get to the point: “With pleasure, the frustration shattered”.
