Blind...and Happy

Can you imagine being blind – totally blind? I can’t and therefore I also can’t imagine how difficult it must be to live in this visual world. It is amazing for me how these special people live their life. In class we talked about “disability” and “difficulty” and I was not sure which term I should use to describe the following person. Then I found the “Courtesy Rules of Blindness” on the internet, where someone wrote: “I'm an ordinary person, just blind. You don't need to remember some ’politically correct’ term, ‘visually impaired’, ‘sight challenged’ etc. Keep it simple and honest, just say blind.”
Okay, I will try to stick to that.

Two days ago there was a concert in a church (in the “Münzgrabenkirche”) in Graz. As you may have guessed from my introduction it was not an “ordinary” one. The duo was called “Blind and Happy”, which refers to one of the two members - Sandra Seiwald. She was born with failing eyesight and became totally blind eleven years ago. Nevertheless, Sandra graduated from high school and studied jurisprudence. Together with Gudrun Topf she founded “Blind and Happy”. Topf studied music and educational theory and had the honor of performing together with Stevie Wonder.
Seiwald and Topf became well-known in Austria when they took part in the ORF talent show “Die große Chance”. Seiwald said in an interview that they applied just for fun and were really surprised that the audience liked them so much. “Blind and Happy” reached the semi-final where they performed one of Seiwalds favorite songs from the musical “Mozart”. The concert last Friday also ended with this beautiful song.

Now I realize that I haven’t written anything about the rest of the concert. Sandra Seiwald and Gudrun Topf sang not only songs from musicals but also spirituals as well as new and old pop songs. My favorite one on that evening was “Run” from Leona Lewis. Seiwald mentioned something that I haven’t realized before. “Run” is a song about a mother and her dead child. The atmosphere afterwards was really special.

Their two voices are amazing together and if there is another concert in Graz, I will definitely be there.

Click here to view their website