Viktor Gernot & His Best Friends - The Farewell Concerts

Karl-Farkass-Gasse 19

1030 Wien

 

Viktor Gernot & His Best Friends will embark on a concert series in the fall of 2025, concluding this musical journey with style and joy after a 37-year band history. They will once again perform their shared arrangements live as a band, improvise, and bring the memories of all these decades to life on stage.

The musical journey began in 1988 at the Roter Engel, a cult club in Vienna's Bermuda Triangle. This musical hotbed of athletes of its time was the venue for the first concerts of Viktor Gernot & His Best Friends. Back then, they were still called Drago & seine Stubenmusi, later Animal House. But already with founding members Thomas M. Strobl on bass and microphone, Peter Haberfellner on guitar, Wolfgang Fellinger on drums, and of course Viktor Gernot himself. In the early years, Eva Maria Feimer (then still Matejka) played piano. In the early 1990s, after their departure, the exceptional pianist Aaron Wonesch joined the band, and finally, at the turn of the millennium, the unique saxophonist Thomas Faulhammer completed the sextet.
37 years of swinging, jazzy music together. With a repertoire of songs from the Great American Songbook, Broadway tunes, jazz standards, and traditional pop songs, always in original arrangements and in the typical Best Friends sound. These are complemented by original compositions, translations into German or dialect, and frequent parodies in the best tradition of the great entertainers. Idols and role models such as Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sammy Davis Jr. continue to inspire the band to this day.
Regardless of whether this musical style was in or out during these more than three decades, the standards and musical taste were never zeitgeist-driven or target-group-oriented, but always a matter of conviction and heart. In total, there were four legendary live concerts from the Radio Kulturhaus in Vienna for ORF Radio Vienna and broadcast on ORF III in a TV format. Absolute highlights were also the concerts at the Vienna Jazz Festival, in the Ö1 tent at the Vienna Donauinselfest, at the Vienna Ronacher, and at the Vienna Stadtfest. Also unforgettable were the Finkenstein Castle ruins, the Rosengarten in Linz, the Open Air in Innsbruck, the concert series at the Simpl in Vienna, and, since 2013, at the CasaNova Vienna. Also fondly remembered are the shared music with colleagues such as Willi Resetarits, Marianne Mendt, Simone Kopmajer, Richard Österreicher, Sigrid Hauser, Eva Marold, Peter Rapp, and Roberto Blanco. In 2000, the Best Friends were the live band for the TV show Alles TV and the hit show "Schlageranfall" by Gernot & Niavarani, both on stage and on television.
And so much more.
This journey has been accompanied by loyal listeners and fans who have accompanied the consummate entertainer Viktor Gernot and his virtuoso musicians at hundreds of concerts over the years.
2025 will be the year to properly mark and celebrate the band's farewell. With a program of new originals, standards, and some greatest hits from Viktor Gernot & His Best Friends, the nobleman of voice and his swinging all-rounders will provide a final highlight with a summary of their shared experiences and successes. Some familiar, some completely new, some almost unjustly forgotten, await the audience on their farewell tour.
Keep On Swingin' and don't miss it!

Thomas FAULHAMMER - "Reeds"
All saxophones, flute, piccolo, clarinet. Composer, arranger, producer, professor at the Joseph Haydn Private University of Eisenstadt. Sought-after studio musician and theater musician on all of Vienna's major stages. He has collaborated with Rainhard Fendrich, Wolfgang Ambros, Peter Alexander, Udo Jürgens, Harry Belafonte, Liza Minnelli, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Gloria Gaynor, and many more...

Wolfgang FELLINGER - "Drums"
Conservatory diploma in jazz, long-time educator, and experienced crossover player in many musical styles, from musicals, rock, pop, and country to Latin and swing.

Peter HABERFELLNER - "Guitars & Violin"
Conservatory diploma in jazz, retired educator, composer, and singer. He has accompanied major artists such as Dorretta Carter, Barbara Dennerlein, The Magic Platters, Bill Ramsey, and many others in diverse formations, from quartets to big bands.

Thomas M. STROBL - "4 Bass Strings and Vocals"
Conservatory diploma in jazz bass and musicals, producer, lyricist, cabaret artist, author, singer, and presenter with occasional forays into Viennese songs. He has toured the world as Johann Strauss, and as a lyricist, he has achieved double platinum and World Music Award honors. Currently also appearing in duo programs with Rainer Sokal and Herbert Steinböck. And, of course, his solo program "Einmal mit Alles" (One for All).

Aaron WONESCH - "Piano and Organ"
Conservatory diploma in jazz, composer, arranger, and professor of didactics and jazz piano at the Vienna MUK, the private university of music and performing arts. He was pianist at the Richard Oesterreicher Big Band, has accompanied on the keyboards such greats as Maja Hakvoort, Peter Alexander, Diknu Schneeberger, and Prof. Karl Hodina. Hardly anyone in the Austrian jazz scene can do without his excellent collaboration.

Viktor Gernot "Singer & Bandleader"
In addition to his enormous success as a cabaret artist, solo or with Michael Niavarani, Thomas Stipsits, Monika Gruber, and the team of the ORF show "What's New?", music is and remains his foundation and passion. He is a trained musical actor with a repertoire ranging from Emperor Franz Joseph in Elisabeth, to Lumieré in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," Leopold in "The White Horse Inn," and Georges in "La Cage Aux Folles" at the Vienna Volksoper. He is a guitarist and jazz vocalist, lyricist, translator, and frontman of the Best Friends. As a singer, he has successfully collaborated with artists such as Simone Kopmajer, Opus, Richard Oesterreicher Big Band, Sigrid Hauser, Christian Kolonovits, Marianne Mendt, Prof. Robert Opratko,
Paul Kuhn, the Hallucination Company, and many others.

(Source: globe.wien)