Culture "for all" and free of charge
The words "culture connects" were painted by young people of the Elsdorfer Stadtjugendring on the container with tent and seating material of the village associations. Before that, Rudi Rüttgers, from the band Acoustic4u, smashed Hannes Wader's song "Good to be here again" on Friday, only with guitar at a considerable distance from his listeners. "I don't feel alone with my wishes, with my questions," it reads. To make others so, many have come to the concert on the meadow in front of the parish church of St. Lucia.
Woelki wished luck
The church, which was little used in the course of Catholic church reforms, was to be brought back to life at the suggestion of the local head, Michael Gülden. Gülden and Günter Röhrig, a former member of the municipal board, founded the working group "Kulturkirche Angelsdorf" six years ago. In a letter, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki also wished the project luck, Röhrig recalls.
From the beginning, the aim was to offer concerts, readings, cabaret and theatre in the middle of the village, beyond the great cultural temples, "for all", and free of charge.In November 2014 it was called "Angelsdorfer für Angelsdorf" for the first time, a concert with the church choir and its own forces. Since then, they have succeeded in getting many artists to perform in the small church, whose acoustics enjoy a good reputation among musicians, Röhrig and Gülden describe.
Parish Church of St. Lucia
The atmosphere in the protected parish church of St. Lucia is popular, with The Vatican correspondent Andreas English as well as with comedians such as Konrad Beikircher or Willibert Pauels, who also like to take the church to the grain.
In performances, by the way, for which the working group paid only "small money", this was made clear right at the beginning of the negotiations with the artists, Röhrig said.Private donations and money from the foundation of the Kreissparkasse Köln financed the performances.Only in this way could they fulfil their social mission and demand the lowest possible entrance fee. The evenings themselves were of course supervised free of charge by the nine volunteers.
Compensation for unusual evenings
Christoph Weber 
Marie Baiger 
Anke Dziadosz 
Cultural work as a voluntary service
It's just a pity that Corona has made a dent in the circle, according to Gülden and Röhrig. With the exception of the live stream of a reading in Cologne dialect, which can be seen on the Facebook page of the city of Elsdorf, the event circle had cancelled all events in the church except for an indefinite period.
To compensate for the unusual evenings, the volunteers had invited to the open-air concert on the meadow in front of the church. A concert that almost burst, because the band Timeless had cancelled at short notice due to illness. Günter Röhrig called Rudi Rüttgers. He still had the guitars, sound and light system lying in the hallway, from a concert with his band "Acoustic4you" on Terra Nova.
Acoustic4u jumped in
The concert-hungry band around the guitar-playing Barden Rüttgers pulled along on call.Christoph Weber, according to his own description of "lower Elsdorfer Musikadel" occupied snare and seat drum, additional voices lent to the band the singers Marie Baiger and Anke Dziadosz.
The audience: inside drank sparkling wine and experienced a wish concert across the pop landscape on the meadow on the balmy summer night under chestnuts and lime trees.They listened to songs as diverse as "Whiskey in the Jar" and "Lady in Black" and smashed the lyrics to freedom "Above the Clouds" behind masks.