Today we’d like to introduce you to Madeleine Rauch.
Madeleine, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I am a singer from Germany. I grew up in Freiburg – a city in the South West of Germany.
I started singing in a children’s choir when I was a little kid. Later at the age of 8, I began with piano lessons, and at 14 I began with voice lessons. I always dreamed of becoming a (Pop) singer and sing on big stages, but it was not until I graduated from high school that I decided to do this professionally. So after German high school, I took a year off to prepare to audition for music universities in Germany.
I definitely wanted to get into a public university since those are the better schools in Germany and there is no tuition. The acceptance rate is around 7%, so it is pretty hard to get in. Luckily, I got accepted at “Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt” in Weimar (Germany) where I then studied Jazz Voice and received my Bachelor of Music. I can say that already getting accepted to a music school was quite a success for me. After four years in Weimar, I decided to study a year abroad at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston.
I had an amazing time there because I met incredible musicians and made great new friends and focused on the music styles that I am really passionate about like R&B, Soul, and Gospel. When I came back to Germany, I was done with college and decided to move to Berlin to start working as a singer and experience the music scene there. I began working as a voice teacher and played gigs with the “Smoke & Soul Band,” a prestigious event band that I had found during my time in Weimar.
After living in Berlin for a year, I got the offer to sing for Marteria – one of Germany’s biggest rappers. We went on several Festival and arena tours all over Europe. Besides singing with high profile artists I am also a songwriter and sing my own songs. I released two singles on Spotify and am currently writing new material.
And since my passion is American music like R&B and Soul I am thinking about relocating to LA.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being a freelance artist and building your own brand or business is always tough of course. There is no recipe that just works for everything you do. There is no paved way or one specific way to do it like maybe with other jobs. There is no 9-5. You have to find your own way, your own strategies, your own motivation to get up and work every day to fulfill that dream. So, all in all, it is never really a smooth road in general. But I still wouldn’t want to do anything else.
I would say the transition times are always the hardest. After graduating from high school and preparing for the auditions, I was so scared and worried if I would get accepted to a good music college. Having just made the decision to become a professional musician I hoped for some kind of answer from the universe telling me yes you made the right decision. So getting into music college definitely gave me reassurance and more confidence.
Another scary transition time was after college when I tried to find out if I could actually make a living being a singer/musician. And I’d say every new project if it’s a new song, a new band, a new album is always scary in some way because you put yourself out there every time and wait for some type of response from people or clients or critics.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am a singer and songwriter, I have performed and toured with several famous German artists such as Marteria, Miss Platinum, 3 Plusss and Jeff Cascaro.
Some of the biggest performances I have had so far include concerts at the Lollapalooza Berlin, Splash Festival, Openair Frauenfeld (Switzerland) and Sziget Festival in Budapest. The highlight this year was a concert with Marteria at the “Ostsee Stadium” (a soccer stadium in Rostock) in front of 33,000 people.
Moreover, I sing with a prestigious event band -the “Smoke & Soul Band” which I am the manager and lead singer for. We have played at a lot of great events in Germany including “Innotrans,” one of the world’s largest trade fairs, the “Weimarer Opera Ball” and the “Porsche Golf Cup.”
Now that I have made a name for myself in Berlin and Germany and since my passion is still American music like R&B and Soul I have been planning to move to LA next year where most of my friends and music colleagues from Berklee live now.
I visited LA in October and reconnected with all my friends and experienced the music scene and it was just amazing. Of course, it’s a lot of work because applying for and getting a work visa is difficult but I hope that I can make this dream come true.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment so far was performing with Marteria in the city’s biggest arena in my hometown Freiburg. My family and my friends were in the audience and held up signs with my nickname on it haha. And I also saw old high school classmates in the first row. It was just an amazing feeling performing on a huge stage in the arena that I used to go to concerts to when I was a teenager.
Another proud moment was receiving the Gold Record Award for 100,000 sold copies of the album “Roswell” by Marteria. We had performed and toured for the album over a year, so it was very special to know that the sale was a success.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.madeleinerauch.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeleinerauch/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/madeleinerauchmusic
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/madeleine_rauch
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuioI7HcoTMfoTCxYjH2tHQ
Image Credit:
Chris Schwarz, Paul Gärtner, Jon Adjahoe
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
