Washington Saengerbund

They were planning to participate as a German chorus in the Second Song Festival of the Nordöstlicher Sängerbund of America, which was to be held in Baltimore, Maryland in June 1851.

Following an invitation from the members of the new singing club, Mr. Charles Walter of Baltimore accepted the musical directorship and set the date for the first rehearsal for April 12, 1851 at the German Hall on 11th Street, NW between F & G Sts in Washington, DC.

In the following years, however, they began participating in those Song Festivals of the Northeastern Sängerbund and brought home prizes and awards on several occasions.

Its first success in the then popular singing competitions came in July 1869 in Baltimore when it won the first prize, a grand piano which it triumphantly brought home to Washington.

The Washington Sängerbund[2] is mentioned in the early history of the United States when during the Civil War in July, 1861 German district soldiers stood at the Great Falls on the Potomac River to guard the local water supply utilities.

Suddenly the men from the Sängerbund sang through the silence "Gesang der Geister über den Wassern" by Franz Schubert.

[3] The Nordöstlicher Sängerbund serves as an umbrella organization for German-American choruses in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and holds a Song Festival (Sängerfest) every three years in a different city.

In 1993 it also organized a National Song Festival in Washington, DC with participating choruses from as far away as Germany, the West Coast and Canada.

On May 22–24, 2009 the Nordöstlicher Sängerbund gathered for the 50th time to hold its Sängerfest and our Nation's Capital Washington, DC was selected for the event.