April 11, 2021, L1. By Alexander Dekkers. Kathy Prater & Julia McCarthy-Fox fell in love with each other through the love for Rieu. Kathy from New Zealand and Julia from the UK. Bigger Rieu fans hardly exist. They once met at a Rieu concert in the USA (2017, Sacramento, California). A true love story that eventually resulted in marriage. Kathy and Julia follow the Johan Strauss Orchestra all over the world. They now have visited dozens of countries. During the time when it was still possible, of course, before corona. Thirteen concerts in a row. L1 met Kathy and Julia in 2018 during the Vrijthof concerts. They stayed in Maastricht for three weeks to attend all thirteen concerts. After having met at Rieu's concert in Sacramento, 2017, USA, they became friends. The spark soon ignited. Marriage with a touch of Rieu. They officially became a couple after the concert series on the Vrijthof in 2018. In the same year, Julia decided to move from England to New Zealand, chasing love. To seal their love, they got married at the end of 2020 in New Zealand. Rieu was also part of that day, how could it be otherwise. They celebrated their marriage in a cinema where Kathy and Julia, together with their guests, enjoyed the Rieu cinema-concert “Magical Maastricht”. During the break, Rieu had a personal message for the bridal couple. That was a big surprise!!

Connected by the music. André Rieu always says: "Music connects people." And that is certainly the case with Kathy and Julia. They now celebrate that they have been a couple for a thousand days since the Vrijthof concerts of 2018. They hope to be able to come back to Maastricht soon for the next series.

More about Julia and Kathy from the time that they attended the 2018 Maastricht concerts, click HERE, and scroll down the page.

Julia moved to New Zealand, received the New Zealand nationality, and they married in Te Awamutu, New Zealand, in the cinema during the movie “Magical Maastricht”, with a limited number of guests due to the corona virus, on October 27th 2020.

These fans from Holland, Australia, USA and New Zealand enjoyed being together for the 2017 concert in the SAP Center in San José, California, USA. The next day André and the Johann Strauss orchestra performed in Sacramento and that is where Kathy and Julia met for the first time.