About me

Who invented MandoIsland an is the owner of this site?

My name is Michael Reichenbach and I was born in 1955.

I grew up in Rheinfelden, a small town in the south of Germany close to the river Rhine. I started playin guitar during the first years in school, and sonn became a member of the local mandolin orchestra. I attended several seminars held by the BDZ (Bund Deutscher Zupfmusiker), the german association of mandolin orchestras and soon played good enough to become a member of the Badisches Zupforchester (Mandolinorchestra of the district of Baden) where I played the guitar and later the mandolin.

I studied physics in Freiburg and started teaching the guitar, playing the mandolin, conducting a mandolin orchestra. I attended a course in conducting at the Bundesakademie für musikalische Weiterbildung in Trossingen. For many years I was teaching guitar and mandolin at the seminars of the BDZ  for young players in Baden.

My first job brought me and my wife to Wiesbaden where I worked as a programmer  and soon became the conductor of the Mandolin Orchestra SBO Mainz-Bretzenheim.

Two years later we returned to Freiburg, where I studied musicology at the university and earned my money as a guitar teacher at the music school in Waldkirch. I did not finish with musicology, but during those years I could improve my knowledge of music and my technique on the mandolin.
For several years I was conducting mandolin orchestras in Kollnau and Kiechlinsbergen. Meanwhile I do only occasionally play with mandolin orchestras, my main activity ist with our bluegrass band Blackberry Jam or playing alone on my mandolin - mostly playing my own pieces or composing new stuff for the mandolin. This site is a place where I show my pieces as sheet music or recording.
The mandolin is my favorite instrument now, and I play the guitar only occasionally.

 

Playing solo 

wearing a sweater of the Kiechlinsgergen orchestra, where I conducted for several years

happy day

This picture shows me before a performance of Mozarts "Don Giovanni" at the opera house in Zürich (Switzerland) with Celilia Bartoli and Nicolaus Harnoncourt as conductor


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