Daniel Betz puts on a program with cinema, theatre, cabaret, pop, jazz and classical music in the Alte Brauerei Stegen. In autumn, Ami Warning will be a guest in the vault.
With his own grand piano: Daniel Betz, founder of Ground Lift Studios, in his auditorium.
(Photo: Nila Thiel)
The pandemic is over, now Daniel Betz also wants to go full throttle at the events. The founder and managing director of the Ground-Lift-Studios in the Alte Brauerei Stegen is starting in pole position, so to speak: the 40-year-old from Schondorf has spent the past two years with live streams, but above all music, television, audio and video productions made enough money to afford a high-end grand piano for a six-figure sum. It was also enough to transform a 130-year-old, mold-infested building into a lounge under a brick vault that was suspected of having a cult following, complete with a jazz cellar as an adjoining room. The technology and equipment Betz put into his studios would go beyond the scope of this story. On top of that, he could treat himself to the luxury of navigating two highly loss-making cinemas across the various Covid waves and shoals, at least on Fridays and Saturdays. And that even “in January and February with an average of 8.25 viewers,” says Betz.
The weekly film offer in Stegen is also to be expanded to four days in the near future. But the live program will come first in the coming days, weeks and months. After all, Groundlift Studio-Stages uses two stages in the old brewery: A small one in the renovated lounge, which used to be used as a barrel store and is now also available for private celebrations. The large one in the brewery’s former cooling ship measures 70 square meters and belongs to the six-metre-high theater hall, which can accommodate up to 300 guests. There is also the 2.80 meter long Bösendorfer, which made producer, sound engineer and pianist Betz go into raptures.
There is also something for rock and pop fans in the old vault.
(Photo: Nila Thiel)
Martin Schmitt is probably looking forward to seeing the beautiful grand piano again. The piano player and German cabaret master of the 2018/19 season gave a presence concert with live stream in Stegen in October 2020 and is scheduled to perform there again next winter. Another highlight of the program – which is of course still growing – is the guest performance by Ami Warning: the singer-songwriter will present her fourth album “Kurz vorm Ende der Welt” on October 20th. Until then, however, you have to catch up on some events, some of which have been postponed several times, says Betz. On Thursday, May 19, Anja Morell and Florian Appel will be presenting a revue about the life of the unforgotten pop singer and chansonnière Alexandra, who would have been 80 that day but died in a car accident at the age of 27. The day after, Susanne Kirchland celebrates its premiere: The new album by the classically trained singer, who teaches singing at the music school in Inning, is called “My Man is Music” and consists of jazz and soul songs that she recorded with her band members Phil Rosplesch and Sebastian Osthold wrote.
Guest in Stegen in October: Ami Warning, here at a performance with her father Wally in Munich’s Gasteig.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
Classical concerts, cabaret and comedy as well as theater performances are also planned for the coming months. On July 8, for example, the NN-Theater from Cologne will be making a guest appearance with “Odyssey – Of Waiting And Longing, Of Love And Rage”. The time of the Ü30 parties in the old brewery is definitely over, but in the atmospheric vault people are dancing and celebrating again. Friends of South American music can look forward to a Latin night on June 4th: First, the steps of merengue, salsa, bachata and reggaeton will be rehearsed in workshops, then you can dance with DJ Vladi in several areas. Lovers of turbo-folk, fast-paced Balkan dances and klezmer will get their money’s worth on September 16th, when the “Balkanauts” along with the support act “Treibauf” and a DJ arrive.