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Here's another drinking song for all of ours listeners and contributors

Walter Ostanek, CM[1][2](born Ladislav Walter Ostanek 20 April 1935 Duparquet,[3] Quebec, Canada), is known as Canada's Polka King. He has received thirteen nominations for Grammy Awards and won three.[4]


Early life

Originally from Duparquet his family moved to St. Catharines, Ontario when he was a boy. A young Ostanek received his first accordion as a gift in 1944. After several years, Ostanek became a popular entertainer in Southern Ontario, performing Cleveland-style polkas and waltzes. He could be heard frequently on the radio in St. Catharines and Welland. Walter began playing polka after his best friend introduced him to the accordion at age 5.

Career

In 1957 Ostanek formed his own band playing Slovenian-style polka music.[5] In 1963, Ostanek and his band, Walter Ostanek Band, would record their first of many albums. Over his career, Ostanek would record more than 50 albums and become known as Canada's Polka King.[6] He has received three Grammy Awards and he has been nominated thirteen times. His style has been compared to America's Polka King, Frankie Yankovic of Cleveland. Like the late Yankovic, Walter Ostanek is of Slovene descent.


Ostanek hosted his own television shows (one for fourteen consecutive years), radio shows, and polka tours. He has appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Phil Donahue, Tommy Hunter Show, Cleveland's Polka Varieties, and his own award-winning TV specials and telethons. He has appeared in concert with Roy Clark, the Oakridge Boys, Ronnie Milsap, Ray Price, Mel Tillis, Brenda Lee, Slim Whitman, Tom T. Hall, T. G. Shepard, Tommy Hunter, Lawrence Welk, Myron Floren, Frank Yankovic, Black Forest Band and Weiss Blau.

Walter Ostanek is a member of Canada's Walk of Fame as well as the Polka Halls of Fame in Cleveland and Chicago. Currently Ostanek does two main concert sets each year: one at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the other during Oktoberfest in Kitchener, Ontario.

He is also the subject of the 2006 Bravo! network documentary The Cult of Walt: Canada’s Polka King. Ostanek is also cited as the inspiration for the Second City Television polka parody, the Shmenge Brothers .[7] and the Osler show.

Walter currently resides in St. Catharines, Ontario. He is the owner of the popular music store "Ostanek's". He still plays locally.

Sigmund Romberg (July 29, 1887 – November 9, 1951) was a Austro-Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.

"Drinking Song to be Sung when Saying Farewell"

Raise your glass with gladsome hand
and drink to cheer your spirits.
If he to whom you are already bound in friendship
is now parted from you by fate,
then banish your grief / brothers, banish your grief
and do not offend a friend's heart.
Drink now. raise your goblet aloft,
my brothers. Raise it aloft and sing
in accord with true friends‘ wise custom.
Sing a blithe song.
Though fate may part us, the friendship
of true hearts will not be broken.

Peter Schreier made his professional debut in August 1959, playing the role of the First Prisoner in Fidelio by Beethoven. In the years that followed he was successful as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from the Seraglio) and somewhat later as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), both operas by Mozart.

In 1963 he was employed by the Berlin State Opera at Unter den Linden. Starting in 1966 he was for many years an annual guest of the Vienna State Opera. That same year he made his debut in Bayreuth as the young seaman in Tristan und Isolde with Karl Böhm as conductor. For 25 years, beginning in 1967, he took part in the program of the annual Salzburg Festival. In 1969, he starred as The Witch in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, in a CD recording that featured the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He also sang Loge in Das Rheingold & Mime in Siegfried by Wagner. It was important to him to sing the title role of Palestrina, the opera by Hans Pfitzner, not only in Munich but also in East Berlin — a controversial issue at the time in East Germany.

He recorded Bach cantatas with Adele Stolte, Annelies Burmeister, Theo Adam, the Thomanerchor and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Erhard Mauersberger, such as the cantata for Pentecost Erschallet, ihr Lieder, erklinget, ihr Saiten! BWV 172 in 1970.[1] Recordings of the Bach's St Matthew Passion have included the version conducted by both Rudolf and Eduard Mauersberger, Claudio Abbado and Herbert von Karajan. He recorded Bach's St John Passion with Helmuth Rilling.

In June 2000, Schreier left the opera stage. His last role was Prince Tamino in Die Zauberflöte; he argued that he could no longer act as if he were still a young prince. He ended his singing career on December 22, 2005, combining the roles of evangelist and conductor in a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Prague.

Throughout his career Schreier has been famous as a singer of German Lieder, including the songs of Schubert and Schumann , as well as Beethoven .

I Checked out the latest Bond film and found out that Albert Finney is in it.