Matthias Heilein is a physician and a musician. “Beides ist mir möglich” (I can do both), he writes in the booklet, adding that he enjoys reaching people both as a doctor and through his music as a singer and pianist. Under the name Doc Heilein & Friends he organises benefit gala concerts, in which he takes part as a baritone and shares the artistic direction with the conductor Armanda ten Brink. The third gala took place on 19 November 2021 at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, in Heilein’s words “in the midst of the storms of a troubled time”. The support focused on freelance musicians and singers, and the concert, Heilein writes, was marked by the joy of being allowed to make music in public again.
The booklet assigns the soloists to four fields. From opera come Sarah Bouwers, Valerie Eickhoff, Tomas Kildisius, Ricardo Marinello and Nils Wanderer, among others, from gospel Timo Böcking & Friends, Miriam and Eva Schäfer and Katja Zimmermann, from pop Leslie Jost, Lewin Blümel, Pamela Falcon and Uta Wiedersprecher, among others; David E. Moore represents musical theatre. They are accompanied by an orchestra with strings, harp and saxophone and a band with piano, drums, electric bass, electric guitars and percussion; the choirs of Sarah Bouwers and Boby C. Purakal also sing.
The programme mixes the fields. Katja Zimmermann and Miriam Schäfer sing “El Shaddai”, six solo voices “It is well”, and Heiner Gulich (saxophone) and Timo Böcking (piano) play “Amazing Grace”. Alongside these come “Breit aus die Flügel” by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart’s “Terzettino” with Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Valerie Eickhoff and Tomas Kildisius, “The cold song” by Henry Purcell with Nils Wanderer and Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” with Ricardo Marinello. Dragos Manza is the soloist in “Schindler’s List” by John Williams, and Anna Dorothea Mutterer and Timo Böcking play Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion”. From pop come “Show me heaven” with Pamela Falcon and “All I wanna do” with Lewin Blümel and Leslie Jost; there are also Udo Jürgens’ “Was wichtig ist” with Matthias Heilein, Katja Zimmermann’s own song “Inmitten der Stürme” and Timo Böcking’s “I need a hand”. “Joyful joyful” with Leslie Jost closes the first CD.
The encores are Timo Böcking’s “Still on the throne” and “Was uns bleibt”, sung by Matthias Heilein with Lewin Blümel, Björn Bergs, Boby C. Purakal and Chris Möhlenkamp. Heilein describes the album title “Joyful” as a feeling and as his prayer for the listeners. Ingo Schmidt-Lucas recorded the concert live, mixing and mastering were done at the Cybele Studios, and the producer is Matthias Heilein.