Gerd C. Zinsmeister comes from Saarland, on the border triangle of
Germany, Luxembourg and France and performs under the name Zinney
Sonnenberg. His band 'Sonnenberg' include, alongside himself, Merlyn
Sturt, Nicole Cllarbone, Saul Hughes and Viki Rose Goulden. They have
recorded and played live in Germany, England and Holland with their
music described as folk music with influences from pop and rock and
world music.
Zinney moved to Liverpool on the 10th of August 1998 with his wife and three year old daughter to do a course at the
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He immediately fell in love
with Liverpool, "a fantastic city with friendly, open-minded people, a
very special light, a lively nightlife and a very special accent that I
had to get used to", and they lived in Liverpool for 21 years. For the first
three years the family lived in Toxteth on Pengwern Street, behind Saint
Silas School in the Welsh Streets area. Later, they lived in Aigburth
for fourteen years. After his course at LIPA was over, they had
acclimatised well to Liverpool where he then worked as a nurse in a
nursing home on Mill Street in Toxteth. His wife took a course at Arts
College on Myrtle Street and their daughter Zoe had already made a lot
of friends at Windsor School. After studying at LIPA, he worked at first
in order to buy more recording equipment and was able to buy an
analogue tape machine from 'The Christians' and later a computer that he
used to record. In between times, he regularly went to open mike events
and played two or three songs there before in 2004 meeting Jeff Davis from
Probe Plus Records in Berlin at a music fair.
The original quartet met while studying at LIPA and after graduation elected to stay in the city and form a band. Originally known as 'Wunderbar', the quartet changed its name to 'Sonnenberg' at the start of 2006 and signed a contract with the Liverpool-based Probe Plus label shortly afterwards. In 2007 the first 'Sonnenberg' album, 'Fishing In The Pool” was released on the Probe Plus label followed by gigs in England Wales and Germany, Norway, Holland, Scotland and France.
Since then the band has gone through various formations for the second release 'The End Of The Rain', and again, five years later, for the album, 'Into The Light'. For this album Zinney says, "We set ourselves the task to keep the vibe warm and positive despite the negativity that surrounds us coming from the news makers, polarisers and politics. We believe that we have created a unique sound that should leave the listener with a positive vibe. I hope we succeeded. Bringing in Eastern musical elements, adding to the mellow soundscape of tablas, guitar and vocals, are Nicole Collarbone on the cello, Merlyn Sturt on viola as well as Vicky Rose Gouldon on vocals. The album was engineered, recorded, mixed and mastered in Liverpool by Jon Whitnall (within five and a half days), who opened up his house, heart and ears for us."
Between 2004 and 2018 he went on tour with the band or solo in Scandinavia, the UK, Germany and Holland and as a supporting act for 'Half Man Half Biscuit', and played mainly in larger venues in the UK, such as the Shepherds Bush Theatre or the Liverpool Academy. Sadly they left Liverpool on the 19th of July, 2019 when they moved to Bavaria, Dachau, known for the concentration camp in Dachau. He's a musician by profession and works at the Dachau Music School as a music teacher and teaches guitar, piano and singing. Again Zinney says, "The sole reason for leaving Liverpool was Brexit. We didn't want to live outside of the EU as second class citizens in Britain without the right to vote. I wrote the song, 'Liverhearts Another River' in 2018. It's intended to reflect my love for Liverpool, as well as the pain and sadness of having to leave my adopted home because of social or political circumstances. In general, as a songwriter, you try to express your feelings or create some breathing space for yourself. In this case, it was the frustration with the political change in 2016 that influenced some of my songs between 2016 and 2019."
see also:- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2021/12/pool-of-sound-sun-zoom.html
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