Sweden – Uppsala, Orphei Drängar and Robert Sund – Part 3

After the concert, we all got into busses to go up to the Castle. It’s an imposing structure which for some time has been not a royal building, but the residence for the county Governor and the large rooms are used for special occasions such as this one, degree granting, etc.



On the way to the castle we were taken by way of the river, where across from Robert and Margareta’s apartment, there hung a giant poster with Robert’s face—another surprise for Robert when he woke up that morning! Robert’s visage was everywhere, a great caricature on banners, same on the coaster under the beer, and on the beer bottle itself a picture of Robert—the beer was called Avslaget (which was explained to us means both “cut off”—as in a conductor’s cut off—and “out of date!”). And the caricature was even on the top of the dessert. All the pictures led to a running joke in the speeches, based on North Korea’s leader Kim-Jong-il, and his ubiquitous portraits: “Kim-il-Sund.”







There were over 700 of us in the hall, a striking high-ceilinged room, tapestries on the walls, with a very long head table, and all the other tables in long rows (each seating 49 or 50) at right angles to it. Candles, a beautifully set table, and everyone in their tails and gowns made for a gorgeous setting. There was also a beautifully prepared program booklet, with lots of pictures of Robert from early days with OD to the present, the complete list of guests, and a number of the songs that were sung (I knew a couple well enough to join in).



A glass of champagne waiting for us as we arrived, and eventually Robert led the group with a song into the hall. There was beer all ready at the table, and (for us guests) tickets for snaps (schnapps). The snaps and beer (and later the wine and sherry) came in handy, since at least 10 times Robert would be announced, stand with his tuning fork and give the pitch for the next song (which was always followed by a toast: skål!



This is a repertoire all members of OD know by heart, so hearing that many voices in a resonant room is amazing. A side note: OD has long had a rule that members have to leave at a certain age (I think 50 or 52) in order to keep the group with a balance of youthful and more mature voices. For this reason there are lots of “veterans” (who do sing on particular occasions and even do their own concerts) who are still amazingly good singers. Across from us at the table were Christer and Karin Solén—Christer sang with Eric for many years in the Chamber Choir as well as OD, where he was tenor soloist for 15 years, and he can still sing a powerful, ringing high C.



Next to Kathryn was Kettel Skarby, who I’d met twice in Uppsala, first in 2002 when I gave lectures on the book, and then again last year during a conference sponsored by the Choral Centre. It was great to talk to all of them (and have ready explanations for such things as the meaning of “avslaget”).



There were of course, speeches (including a nice one by Philip Brunelle on the “secret” group’s behalf), awards, some planned songs, and much else. Robert gave a great speech near the end, mentioning many people—Eric Ericson, of course, (who couldn’t be there because he was on tour with EEKK that weekend—he’ll be at the Stockholm concert), and the many officers who make OD work. Robert also mentioned Cecilia Rydinger-Alin, who will be the next conductor of OD and who was there, of course, with her husband Folke Alin, the long-time accompanist and assistant conductor of OD, as well as repetitör and co-choirmaster at the Royal Opera (he prepared the opera chorus for the great production of Orphée that we saw).

Cecilia and Folke (seated):



The waiters and waitresses (dressed beautifully) came out for each course (or to remove the last one) in a long line in front of the head table, paused, then moved down the long rows between the tables together.

Quite simply, everything was done with class.

And, of course, the reason we were here (Robert and Margareta):

Robert, Steen, and Margareta:



Robert and Margareta:



After dinner (around 11 PM), everyone repaired to an upstairs room for coffee and brandy, before coming back downstairs for dancing with a big band. We greeted a few people, but didn’t stay. Most of us called it a night after dinner and we walked back to the hotel with Dick and Diane Loomer. A fabulous time!

Sunday morning around 9 we bid goodbye to Gunilla and Jerry, who were headed to the airport, had breakfast with Ágnes, visited with several others including Lawrence and the Brunelles, then went for a lovely walk. We were to meet Ágnes again at 1 PM, so checked out after the walk and hung around the lobby, where we managed to see almost everyone one last time as they were on their way out. We then had a long lunch and visit with Ágnes before catching the train ourselves.

Gunilla and me:



Kathryn Sparks with Ágnes (all photos credit to Kathryn--except this one!)



Again, I can’t say how much of an honor it was to be a part of this. It was a special occasion in every way.

Sweden – Uppsala, Orphei Drängar and Robert Sund – Part 2

Gunilla met us at the apartment early Friday afternoon to drop a few things off, since she was going back home directly from Uppsala. We caught the train to Uppsala and who would we see when we got settled, but Diane and Dick Loomer! We had a wonderful time catching up during the trip. Diane has been co-conductor (with Morna Edmonson) of the women’s choir Elektra in Vancouver B.C. for 20 years and is founder/conductor of the men’s choir, Chor Leoni. She and Dick also run a small publishing company dedicated to Canadian choral works, Cypress Music, well worth checking out. Dick and Diane are both delightful people and the time passed quickly.

The weather, by the way, has been beautiful, with lots of sunshine. After checking in at the hotel we made plans for dinner. When we came downstairs, Jerry McCoy (head of the choral program at the University of North Texas and President-Elect of ACDA) had just arrived, so he joined us for dinner. A great time with great people.

The next morning we met Lawrence Cherney for breakfast—Lawrence is Artistic Director for Soundstreams in Toronto. Pro Coro has taken part in several Soundstreams events and we wanted to talk about possible future collaborations. Ágnes came down for breakfast as well. At 11 AM we met to rehearse a Schubert song (including some different words wishing Robert a happy birthday) that we were singing at the dinner, so met all the others at that time. Philip Brunelle led the rehearsal—I have to say, we were a pretty motley choir! Afterwards we all had lunch, joined by Karl Eric and Margareta.

After a bit of a break, we dressed and left for the concert. There was an almost full house, with most of the “veteran” members of OD who were attending wearing tails, as is traditional for the dinner (their wives in evening dresses). The concert itself was great and Robert chose a program with some of the pieces that will be on the tour program next fall, traditional Swedish male choir repertoire, plus guests Lena Willemark (a marvelous singer who does a wide variety of styles from folk to jazz to “kulning”—the high, loud singing originally designed to call the cows home), Claes Janson (a fabulous blues/jazz singer), and jazz piano trio, Trio X.

Besides traditional Swedish male chorus songs, the classical repertoire included Bob Chilcott’s 5 Ways to Kill a Man, Anders Hillborg’s male chorus version of muo:ayiy:oum, Toivo Kuula’s Iltapilviä, and Murray Schafer’s Magic Songs, commissioned by OD some years ago. Magic Songs is a challenging set (I’ve done the mixed voice version with Pro Coro) and OD did them from memory with choreography—very impressive! There were also songs by Lena and Claes, duets with the two of them, a solo performance by the trio, and Robert joining Lena on Ale Möller’s Tango vid midnatt on accordion (a talent I didn't know he had, but I'm not surprised!). There were also speeches and the presentation of a medal to Robert by the President of the University. Great fun, the choir sounded wonderful, and the program was followed by at least three encores.

During the second half of the program it was arranged to have spotlights on all of us so that Robert could finally see the “secret guests.” It took a minute for him to finally realize who was there—he said he first saw Steen, who’s very tall—and he was genuinely surprised and delighted. In his own speech, he broke into English momentarily to great his “friends from abroad.” Believe me, it was our pleasure!

Sweden – Uppsala, Orphei Drängar and Robert Sund – Part 1

I’ll break this post up into several parts, since there’s so much to tell (plus pictures).

Orphei Drängar is one of the world’s best men’s choruses—you can find their website here—with a history that dates back to 1853. They came out of a tradition of student choirs at the famous Uppsala University (founded in 1477), although OD (as it’s called) has long had members who are no longer students. Uppsala itself is a beautiful university town with a rich history and impressive Cathedral and castle. Because of the Cathedral (earlier versions than the present one) it has been the center of spiritual life in Sweden since the 1200s.



The first time I came to Sweden in April of 1989, OD formed the “bookends” of that visit. When I arrived, they were about to go on a short tour with Eric Ericson and he invited me to go along—and so I did, riding the bus, attending rehearsals and concerts, staying at the hotel with them, eating meals, and generally having a wonderful time. At the end of my stay Eric invited me to attend the first of May “Serenade” concert (which Robert Sund was conducting). This is part of an important time in all Northern countries when Spring is officially declared and the long, dark winter over—and in this case the students party, shall we say, impressively! We had a luncheon with Orphei Drängar, then the afternoon concert, then went to the library for sherry with some honored guests and the President of the University. At the appointed hour we all went out onto the balcony where we could see that every square foot of ground was covered with students. The President made the official announcement that Spring had arrived and the students cheered, threw hats into the air, and began their celebrations. Shortly afterward we went to the castle, where we heard a brief, outdoor performance by Allmänna Sången under their new conductor, Cecilia Rydinger-Alin (Robert Sund had recently finished his 15 year stint as their conductor)—you’ll see (if you haven’t already figured it out) how prescient all of this is! After that we had a lovely dinner at the Castle. You can imagine this was a pretty impressive introduction to Sweden and OD!

By the way, if you conduct a men’s choir, OD has probably the most extensive library in the world for this repertoire, and the library is online in a searchable database here.

OD has a particularly strong history of conductors: Hugo Alfvén (you may know his beautiful “Aftonen”) was the choir’s fifth conductor from 1910-1947 and raised standards, plus writing many compositions for this choir. Eric Ericson followed him from 1951-1991, which meant further increases in the choir’s standard, a much wider repertoire, and eventually recognition and tours outside Sweden (they first toured the USA in 1970, for an incredible six weeks). Robert Sund has had a long career with the choir, beginning as a singer in 1965, becoming Eric’s assistant conductor in 1968, in 1985 becoming co-conductor with Eric (they alternated responsibility for concerts), and sole conductor in 1991.

Robert and I also go back a long way. While I met him briefly in 1989 in Sweden, I really got to know him a month or so later, when we were both judges at the first International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany. All the judging discussions were done in German and I sat next to Robert, who was kind enough to supply me with words when my German ran out! We’ve kept in touch over the years; he helped with background when I was researching my dissertation on Swedish choral music the summer of 1990, and I also brought him as a clinician to the PLU summer choral workshop in 1993. I’ve seen him and his wife Margareta at conferences and on every visit to Sweden since.

That’s all prelude to the events of this past weekend, which marked Robert’s 66th birthday and his last series of concerts with OD in Uppsala (he will lead them on a tour to North America in October—don’t miss it if you’re anywhere close by!). Margareta and Karl Eric Ericson were the primary conspirators (Karl Eric is a life-long friend of Robert’s, was involved with the tour I was a part of back in ’89, and was at a memorable dinner at Robert and Margareta’s in 1996 after Kathryn and I were married). Along with a few others I got this message from Karl Eric a year ago: “I am writing to you as a member of a "secret" group within Orphei Drängar. The group is planning for Robert Sund's last official appearance as OD's conductor. Part of the planned activities and events will be kept in utmost secrecy, especially for Robert. My task is to approach some of Robert's old and close friends inviting them to Uppsala for the concert on April 19. We believe that Robert will be highly surprised but also most happy and delighted to spot you and the other old friends in the audience during the concert!”

Karl Eric, Margareta, and Dick Loomer:




Karl Eric and Margareta did an amazing job of keeping this secret . . . except for me, since Robert already knew I’d be in Sweden. I got a message from Karl Eric in January: “I guess that Robert will rather soon contact you. The reason is that OD's president (Christian Wetterberg) a few minutes ago has talked to him about OD's wish to invite his two sons and their wives to the concert and the dinner. At the same time he asked Robert if there were some other persons he would like OD to invite for the event. His first proposal was you! The president told Robert that OD will invite you as soon as Robert has delivered your contact addresses! So, in short: when Robert contacts you - try act as if you are really surprised! That is to ensure that Robert will not get a suspicion that you already know about this.” Of course, I acted “surprised” when I got the call from Robert!

So it was that Kathryn and I got to go to this truly fantastic event, along with other friends of Robert, including Philip and Carolyn Brunelle, Gunilla Luboff, and Jerry McCoy from the USA; Diane and Dick Loomer, and Lawrence Cherney from Canada; Gardar Cortes from Iceland; Tove Ramlo-Ystad and Tor Ystad from Norway; Steen and Sigga Lindholm from Denmark; Matti and Mariana Hyökki; Seppo and Laura Murto, and Gottfrid Gräsbeck from Finland; and Ágnes Szalai from Hungary (Ágnes is also a dear friend of ours—we also met for the first time in Marktoberdorf). Simply put, it was a great honor to be included in this group and the amazing weekend.

Cast of Characters:

Philip and Carolyn Brunelle:



Carolyn, Ágnes Szalai, and Gunilla Luboff:



Jerry McCoy, Richard, Steen Lindholm, Philip:



Diane and Dick Loomer:



Lawrence Cherney (on the right--Seppo and Laura on the left):



Gardar Cortes:



Tove Ramlo-Ystad and Tor Ystad:



Steen and Sigga Lindholm:



Ágnes, Matti and Mariana Hyökki:



Laura and Seppo Murto:

Sweden – February 7/8, 2008

Thursday
We went by the first hour of RK rehearsal (along with EEKK) for Rachmaninoff Bells, led by Risto Joost. I have to say, I’m even more impressed with Risto’s work. Of course, it helps that he’s fluent in Russian, but also understands the style/sound elements in this music. One wouldn’t guess that he’s so young: his rehearsal is relaxed, yet demands a lot of detail work, and he’s clearly in command. Very enjoyable, and I think the combined choirs will sound quite spectacular (and quite Russian) for these performances (in Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki).

We only spent an hour at the rehearsal, since we had to catch the train to Uppsala for that evening’s performance of the Cherubini Requiem with Orphei Drängar and the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra. The hall, part of a conference center that just opened, is interestingly set up: conference facilities below and two LONG escalator rides to the concert hall, which is on top of the building. Uppsala doesn’t have tall buildings and it’s relatively flat, so I imagine the view (the “lobby” goes all around the hall with lots of windows) is spectacular. Of course, since we were there after dark, it was a little difficult to tell! Hopefully we’ll see it this spring in the daylight. The hall itself isn’t that beautiful. Other than red seats, everything is grey. However, the sound is pretty good—clear, but without much extra resonance to give a bloom to the sound.

The program opened with Berwald’s Symphony Serieuse in g minor. Berwald’s an important Swedish composer (remember, the Radio’s hall is Berwaldhallen), but I wasn’t particularly struck by this work.

The second half was Cherubini’s Requiem in d minor for male choir and orchestra. This isn’t a work that’s often done—it’s fairly challenging for the choir, and there just aren’t that many good, big male choirs. OD, of course, is a good, big male choir and they performed really well. Folke Alin did the choral preparation and his work, as I’ve said before, is excellent.

Paul Mäggi, the Estonian conductor of the chamber orchestra, is also very good. His gestures are understated, but clear and expressive. The orchestra (strings 6-5-4-4-3, double winds, 2 trpts, 3 trombones and timpani) also play very well.

I’d listened to the work long ago (long enough that I remember it was on an LP!) and don’t remember being that impressed, but after this performance, I’d put it on my list of works to do someday—should the performing circumstances be right!

Friday
Today was prep day to leave—doing laundry, cleaning up and other mundane tasks—but we also looked forward to hearing the Göteborg (Gothenburg) Symphony Orchestra under their chief conductor, the (barely) 27 year old wunderkind, Gustavo Dudamel, who will also become Music Director of the LA Philharmonic in 2009. Check out this YouTube video of him leading his Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra in Bernstein’s Mambo—and this interview during the London Proms.

All I can say, based on watching this concert (and I say “watching” advisedly—we were seated in the front row of the choir stalls directly behind the orchestra, so we had a dead-on view of Dudamel the entire time), is that the hype ain’t hype—he is that good.

It was an interesting program, opening with a premiere (they’d just done the world premiere in Gothenburg before coming to Stockholm)—Paula af Malmberg Ward’s Operatic. She came out to introduce the material—essentially a set of variations, with Dudamel and the orchestra then playing examples. The piece itself is strong, lots of interesting musical ideas and a wonderful orchestration. It also included the orchestra members speaking a text by Ward, which she’d had translated into Spanish.

Next on the program was the Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante for cello and orchestra, with the great Norwegian cellist, Truls Mørk. A fantastic piece I didn’t know, it was premiered by the 20 year old Rostopovich in 1952. Mørk and the orchestra gave a wonderful performance—just stunning. After many times being demanded back to the stage, Mørk played a simple Grieg melody (I recognized the tune, but couldn’t place it--I think it was one of his songs), softly, slowly and incredibly beautifully. A gorgeous way to go off after the virtuosic Prokofiev.

After intermission, Dudamel turned to the Nielsen Fifth Symphony. Another work I was unfamiliar with, and another spectacular performance. Having not heard it before, I can’t compare with other performances, but it’s no cool, Nordic work, at least not in Dudamel’s hands.

Dudamel is fascinating to watch: intensely musical, his gestures dramatic, varied, and always to the emotional point of the music. See him if you can!

This was a great way to end the winter part of my Swedish adventures this year. It’s late and I have to get up at 5 AM to catch my plane to London and on to Edmonton, so goodnight!

Sweden – February 5/6/7, 2008

Monday
. . . was a relaxed day with nothing scheduled. A time for a bit of score study (upcoming Pro Coro concert), catching up with email, and since it was a fairly nice day, time for a walk, too. That evening we also saw a documentary on the violinist Maxim Vengerov on tv, called Living the Dream. It’s just terrific and well worth seeing if you get a chance (I see it’s available through netflix, if you’re a subscriber).

Tuesday
We went to Risto Joost’s rehearsal with RK on the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil. Risto is a talented young Estonian conductor (b. 1980) who has studied both choral and orchestral conducting in Tallin and Vienna. A counter-tenor, he has sung with a number of groups, including the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (which achieved prominence under Tõnu Kaljuste) under Paul Hillier in 2001-02. In 1999 he founded his own chamber choir, Voces Musicales, and has guest-conducted an impressive list of ensembles, including the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tallinn Baroque Orchestra, Tallinn Youth Orchestra, as well as the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Estonian National Male Choir, Swedish Radio Choir, Ars Nova Copenhagen. Since 2005 he’s also been in Jorma Panula’s conducting class in Stockholm—I saw him briefly in the class on Wednesday.

Risto speaks perfect British English, also Russian and (since he studied in Vienna) I assume at least German (and probably some other languages as well). He led quite a good rehearsal of RK, first running through the work before break (RK has sung it many times), then working on the last three movements plus number 11 afterwards. Quite a few RK members were ill (either missing or sitting out), so the quality of what the choir was doing was a bit rougher than one would ordinarily expect (at the very end of the rehearsals there were 3 out of 8 altos singing). Risto dealt with it very well, concentrating on language, rhythm, and the sound he wanted. He also uses his voice to demonstrate well. I’m sorry I won’t be around to see what he eventually does with the concert.

After lunch, I met with Arne Lundmark to talk a bit more about what I’ll be doing in the Spring, finalize repertoire, schedule, concert dress, etc. As I’ve said, I think Arne is a very good person to have in this position with RK now. As a very fine singer himself (he still teaches voice one day a week at the Royal Conservatory, and works as a soloist), and former long-time member of EEKK, he understands both good singing and good ensemble singing. He also understands the choral world and what it means to have a world-class choir. To hear him sing, get Eric’s 3rd CD in his series of contemporary Swedish choral music, in Sven-David Sandström’s Etyd Nr. 4, som e-moll (a truly gorgeous piece, one of my favorites and one of Sven-David’s most Romantic works). Arne sings the baritone solo beautifully.

Wednesday
I’d been in touch with Cecilia Rydinger-Alin earlier about her schedule and today was the day I could visit the Royal College of Music. She’s been promoted to Professor of orchestral conducting now (a big honor) and runs the program there (Jorma Panula, who is also Professor is also there, but less frequently). Today there was a guest teacher, Are Sandbakken (Tues/Wed/Thurs) from Oslo, to teach the conductors about working with strings. Are is former principal violist for the Oslo Philharmonic, where he played under Mariss Jansons (see this recent laudatory article about Janssons in the Washington Post) and many others, and now teaches chamber music at the Royal Conservatory in Oslo. He’s done these master classes for several years in Stockholm and has a wonderful, warm, and extremely musical approach. I only saw part of his class with the students, but here he was working with them on repertoire (Stravinsky Concerto in D, Grieg Holborn Suite, Elgar Serenade for Strings) they would conduct later that day with orchestra—at this point the students conducting pianos with Are playing viola. He’s very good with gesture, always asking for (and demonstrating) musical gestures that communicate with (not against) string technique. When I first arrived, Risto was just finishing work. The next conductor worked on the Grieg Holberg Suite, and here Are was also concerned with good eye contact, as well as finding ways to work with a Romantic-era rubato (after the break he was going to play a recording of period piano playing, which I missed, since I went to lunch with Cecilia). More than anything else, he communicated the joy of music making—he’s clearly a talented and inspirational teacher.

While the class had a break (they were working just with Are from about 10 AM until 1:30 PM or so), I went to lunch with Cecilia. As I’d talked about last year, she began as a choral conductor (and remains one as conductor of Allmänna Sången, her chamber choir in Uppsala), but after completing the diplom program with Eric, began the orchestral conducting program. Her position at the Conservatory is about 60% and she still keeps some guest conducting as well. She and her husband, Folke Alin, have three children, so that keeps them busy, too! Folke is one of the two choirmasters at the opera, in addition to coaching (in fact, he did most of the choral preparation of the production of Orphée which we saw), and for many years has been accompanist and assistant conductor of Orphei Drängar, the great men’s chorus in Uppsala. We’ll get to a performance of the Cherubini Requiem with OD and the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra in Uppsala tomorrow evening that Folke has prepared. Cecilia and Folke are both candidates for the position of conductor of OD (along with Mats Nilsson—I wrote about his last year) and won’t find out until early May who has been appointed to the position. Cecilia’s also a talented and devoted teacher—at some point I hope to observe her teaching as well, perhaps later this spring.

After lunch I watched a bit more of the class with Are before they took a lunch break, then joined them again at 3 PM when the students worked with the orchestra (strings 3-3-1-1-1 with three professionals—two violins and cello—and the rest conservatory students). In this case, Are let the students work without interruption, just taking notes to give them later. When possible, I like to do this, too, to let the conductors develop their own rhythm in rehearsal (I’ll never forget a master class I participated in with a teacher who will remain nameless, who’d never seen me work before, and stopped me in the 2nd bar of the piece—nice way to find out how someone conducts!). The string ensemble was good, as were the conducting students. As I mentioned last year, the students here get to work with members of the Radio Orchestra and another professional orchestra, so they get a fair amount of practical experience with professionals (as do the choral conducting students, who work once a week with a 16-voice vocal ensemble made up of professionals, most from RK or EEKK). This is important, and something I wish could happen regularly in American universities.

I only was able to stay for about an hour and a half, not the full session, then headed back to meet Kathryn for dinner.

Stockholm 2007 - Weeks 5 & 6

March 12, 2007

Hi all,

Well it's been a good two weeks since I last wrote, but impossible for us to imagine that we have just one week left.

Our week in Kristiansand, Norway with Kathryn's sister and her family was a wonderful break. Amazingly, there was over a meter and a half of snow (over four and a half feet), a meter that fell before we left Stockholm and the rest over the next few days. Incredible! Heidi has lived in Kristiansand for 20 years now and had never seen such snow.

Kathryn's cold got worse, but at least we weren't doing a lot--visiting, eating, and walking into and around town once each day.

One evening was a dinner with Rolf Gupta, the conductor of the orchestra in Kristiansand (Heidi works in the administration), his son Petter (who is Christoffer's age--they both play guitar, so they were busy upstairs playing blues or working on Jimi Hendrix riffs), his assistant Line and her son Gabriel, who's five or six. Rolf is extremely bright, a terrific musician (child prodigy pianist and a conducting student of Jorma Panula, see below) who conducted the Radio Orchestra in Oslo for three years and is just about to head out to Holland and Switzerland to guest conduct, so it was a fun evening.

Another evening we got a preview of Trygve's duo piano recital (which was this past week) with his new duo-partner Karina Lervik, who's a master's student of his from Russia and a very fine pianist. The program included Grieg, Piazzola, Poulenc and a virtuosic sonata by Rachmaninoff. Great to hear Trygve enjoy working with his new partner so much in a beautiful program.



By the last few days the temperatures were above freezing, a little bit of rain, and the snow beginning to melt.

We came back Friday--a long trip, leaving at 9 AM, a 2-hour layover in Oslo (when we saw our nephew Kaare Øystein--Trygve's oldest son from his first marriage--and separately, his wife Ane, both of whom were nice enough to take a little time off work to visit us at the train station), then got back to the station in Stockholm shortly after 10 PM. The weather was much milder and almost all the snow is gone.

Saturday was a "catch-up" day of shopping and laundry, then Sunday welcomed us back to our usual Stockholm schedule with a bang. First, we had a delicious brunch at the apartment of a good friend of Gunilla's (whom we've met before in both Stockholm and Tacoma), Christina Björk, and her partner Erling Sandström. Christina is the head of the educational division between Swedish Television and Radio, and Erling is a television producer for the Save the Children foundation, just back from Yemen. Extraordinarily bright people and a great time.

From there, we had twenty minutes to walk quickly across the bridge and Gamla Stan (Old Town) back to St. Jacobs for a Mass at 3 PM. Gary's choir was doing an interesting mass--Missa Lorca--by Corrado Margutti, a young (b. 1974) Italian composer, commissioned by the St. Jacob's Chamber Choir. It sets texts by Lorca in place of the usual Latin ordinary and uses themes from Monteverdi's Missa in illo tempore. The premiere was last November, along with the Monteverdi Mass on which it's based, which Gary did by dividing the choir into one-on-a-part ensembles, each doing a different movement. The mass Sunday, with all psalms, hymns, liturgy, sermon and communion, was about an hour and three quarters long, but really enjoyable.

The day was capped off by a dinner party at Birgit Hemberg's with 11 people, including Gary Graden and his wife Maria. Birgit was for many years the editor in chief of Allt om mat (All about food), the leading cooking magazine in Scandinavia and, although retired, just finished co-editing the latest edition of Bonnier's cookbook, which would be the Nordic equivalent of the revised Joy of Cooking, so you can imagine the dinner was spectacular. What a way to be welcomed back to Stockholm!

Monday was my first day at the Musikhögskolan (MH or Royal College of Music). The Finnish conducting pedagogue, Jorma Panula, is now Professor of orchestral conducting in Stockholm, and I wanted to see him work. For those who don't know him, Panula was a legend at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where from 1973-94 he trained the most successful generation of conductors that any one teacher has probably had: Esa-Pekka Salonen (LA Philharmonic), Sakari Oramo (who succeeded Simon Rattle in Birmingham), Jukka-Pekka Sarastre (who conducts the Stockholm Philharmonic this week and recently became leader of the Oslo Philharmonic), and Osmo Vänskä (who's in Minnesota), among others.

Cecilia Rydinger-Alin met me at the school and introduced me to Panula--Celilia teaches orchestral conducting part-time at MH and also administers the program (more about her later in the week). They are lucky to have a great relationship with the Radio Orchestra and also the orchestra in Norrköping, so the conductors in the masters and diploma program get to conduct professionals fairly regularly. I don't know of another place where this happens in quite the same way. Because of Panula, the school draws an international group of outstanding and experienced conducting students. This week, two of the conductors are doing the Nielsen Flute and Clarinet concertos with a chamber orchestra from the Radio Orchestra (strings 4-4-3-3-2 + necessary winds, brass, and percussion), plus other conductors doing a few other works.

The class at MH in the morning was with the solo flutist, a pianist playing reduction, Jorma playing whatever he felt was necessary from a minature score at another piano, and two of the conducting students (both Finnish) playing violin. Unfortunately, the clarinetist had a flight delay, so they only worked on the flute concerto today, plus another piece by Sibelius, with two different students. The conductor of the Flute concerto is a Korean woman, who'd previously studied in Berlin for four years and just began this year with Panula. However, it's not at all sure she'll be able to continue, as she just won the Solti competition and was also appointed assistant conductor (for two years) to James Levine with the Boston Symphony!

Panula doesn't make many comments, but stops if he feels she's missed something or has a tempo wrong. After a shortened class, I chatted with Cecilia a bit about the program and then made my way to the Radio, where the rehearsal was held in the late afternoon. The conductor did an excellent job and the flutist (a young professional) was excellent. Here, Panula makes even fewer comments, occasionally saying a word or two, allowing the student for the most part to run the rehearsal. The rest of the time was spent with other conductors, including one of the Finnish conductors who was working on a new piece (rather difficult) by a student composer at MH.

Tuesday was my 2nd day at MH, this time to visit Anders Eby's class (the masters students). Once a week they work with a paid vocal ensemble of 16, which includes 6 members of the Radio Choir, some of Eric's Chamber Choir, and others. It makes for an excellent and very quick ensemble with which to learn, to say the least. There are only 4 in the class, this year all non-Swedes (Norway, Germany, Slovenia, and Russia)--that's not unusual for Anders' class, which often has foreigners outnumbering Swedes. Anders also does lots of masterclasses throughout Europe (and shortly, in Beijing), so that's part of the reason so many come to Stockholm. Currently, they're working towards a concert on Thursday, so this is the last rehearsal other than an hour's dress rehearsal before the concert.

The level of the class is good, although not spectacular, and they're working this time on all fairly recent music, most by Swedish composers, including Anders Hultqvist, Kjell Perder (who was there to listen to his pieces) and two student composers (who were also there). Certainly this ensemble can do this kind of music in a very short period of time, so these conductors get experience with a repertoire that few American or Canadian conducting students could get in the same amount of time.

After the class Anders and I had lunch together and a good chance to talk more. He's been Professor at MH since 1994 and has an excellent perspective on the situation in Sweden--and says he is more optimistic than he was 5 years ago. I'll say a bit more about that later when I say something about current conditions of choral music in Sweden. It was a great discussion, however, including questions about (and greetings to) Pro Coro, since Anders is a past Artistic Director and guest conducted PC a year and a half ago.

Kathryn took the day to go to Haga Park, where she visited a really lovely butterfly house and Japanese garden, King's pavilion, etc.

Together we went Tuesday evening to a rehearsal at Konserthuset with OD and the Stockholm Philharmonic of Sibelius's Kullervo. As he's done for about 20 years, Anders Andersson did vocal warmups for the choir. Anders does very interesting vocalises with an intensely musical approach. Someone should bring him to North America for sessions at an ACDA or ACCC conference, regional convention, or perhaps an individual workshop. When rehearsals are in Uppsala, he also gives some voice lessons to members of OD (paid for by the choir).

Folke Alin then began the rehearsal, working on several spots (particularly on the Finnish, since it's difficult and calls for quite a different choral sound than Swedish) before Jukka-Pekka Sarastre came in for a brief piano rehearsal. At one point Folke asked for "ett Finnskt forte" (I think you can translate yourself). Then they went into the hall to rehearse with orchestra and soloists. Jukka-Pekka is an extraordinary conductor and knows this work cold ( he recorded the complete works of Sibelius twice with the Radio Symphony in Helsinki), and of course as a Finn, the text is also natural for him. He was in the same conducting class of Jorma Panula as Esa-Pekka Solonen and Sakari Oramo--it would have been daunting to be (one of) the "other" student(s) in that class! The orchestra and soloists were great and OD sounded very good, although Folke was a bit upset, saying they were missing almost 20 members tonight and he was afraid Jukka-Pekka would be disappointed. We'll hear the concert on Thursday, so will say more then.

Wednesday I spent some time at the Radio working on music for next week's rehearsals with the Radio Choir, while Kathryn went to the Asian Art Museum, a small but very high quality museum.

That evening we went back to Uppsala again, this time to attend a rehearsal of Cecilia Rydinger-Alin with her long-time choir (since 1988), Allmänna Sången. This is one of the oldest choirs in Uppsala, originally one of the student male choirs (as was OD), eventually becoming a mixed choir. Robert Sund preceeded Cecilia as conductor. The choir is close to 50 members and quite young, from 18-35 with an average age of about 25 or so, and changing a quarter or so of its membership each year (much like a college/university choir in North America). It's a very good amateur choir and have won several big European competitions. Tonight one of Eric's Chamber Choir's baritones, Ove Petterson, was working with the choir on vocal technique, so he did a long warm-up (about 35 minutes) and then Cecilia had him occasionally make comments during the rehearsal. They were working on one of the Stenhammar's 3 Choral Ballads, Rautavaara's Die Erste Elegie (which is challenging for almost any choir), a fun folk song setting by the Japanese composer Matsushita, and Bach Singet dem Herrn. As Cecilia said, they're about half way through the rehearsal period, so have some things well in hand and on others are still struggling--all of us know exactly what that's like! After rehearsal, we went back on the train with Cecilia and Ove and had a great conversation. Ove was in the Conservatory Chamber Choir with Eric when they were at PLU's summer workshop in 1988 and I've seen him in Eric's chamber choir on most of my other visits, although we'd never really sat down and talked. Cecilia I first met when Eric's choir was at PLU in 1984 (at the end of my first year there), but I really noticed her in 1987 when the Conservatory Chamber Choir was at IFCM in Vienna and she did a warm-up and rehearsal with the choir. Her conducting and music-making was SO musical and intense, it was great fun to watch. After finishing her diploma (master's degree level--there is no doctorate, but performance-wise it meets or exceeds US/Canadian doctorates) in choral conducting with Eric, she was (I believe) the first woman accepted into the orchestral conducting program. Following that she began a good free-lance career conducting both orchestra and opera. Since taking the position at MH (considered a 60% position), however, she does less free-lance work. She and Folke also have 3 children, 16, 14, and 6, so their lives (besides his work with OD Folke is one of the conductors and repetiteurs for the Royal Opera house) are full, to say the least. At any rate, it was simply great fun to connect again and watch her work.



Thursday was errands and score study during the day, but that evening we went to the Philharmonic concert. All I can say is WOW! What a terrific program and great concert. The first half was Stenhammar's Excelsior! (an overture about 15 minutes long) and Sculpture by Magnus Lindberg (about 25 minutes long). Lindberg is one of several interesting and successful Finnish composers (b. 1958) and this piece was written for the opening of Disney Hall for the LA Phil and Esa-Pekka Solonen, and dedicated to Frank Gehry, the architect of the hall (and also the Experience Music Project, for Seattleites reading this). It's a fascinating piece, written for a smaller string section (often playing divisi), quadruple winds, 4 trpts, 4 trmb, two tubas, lots of percussion, two pianos and two harps. Lindberg has a great orchestral imagination and the piece really "works." The orchestra (and Jukka-Pekka) gave a great performance of both pieces. After intermission was Sibelius' Kullervo, about 80 minutes long. Well, the orchestra just plain played the hell out of it (it's not easy) and OD sounded magnificent (and quite Finnish--very different than their usual sound--I can only imagine that Jukka-Pekka was very happy with them). The soloists were both Finnish and sang from memory: Jorma Hynninen was the baritone and Lili Paasikivi the mezzo. Both were excellent, but Lili was amazing--I'd go to hear her sing anything, anytime. Jukka-Pekka's conducting is dramatic, big, but always clear and always towards musical ends. Great fun to watch him. At any rate, a great evening.

Friday showed your correspondent isn't always too bright. I had the Vokalensemble from MH's concert listed on Friday on my calendar and, oddly, couldn't find them at MH! Of course, the concert was on Thursday and somehow I wrote it down wrong. Oh well. Kath (being more intelligent) spent the afternoon at the Modern Art Museum, which she said was really good, both their permanent collection and the current show of Robert Rauschenberg's works.

Friday evening we went to hear the Radio Orchestra, primarily because Truls Mørk was playing, as he's certainly one of the world's great cellists. Conductor for the evening was Eivind Aadland, who conducts the orchestra in Trondheim, Norway (and another student of Panula--is there a Scandianvian orchestral conductor who DIDN'T study with him?! I suppose it's like trying to find a Swedish conductor from several earlier generations who didn't study with Eric!). The program opened with Grieg's Ballad, a piano piece orchestrated by Geir Tveitt. Can't say either of us were too impressed with the orchestration--not really inspired. Mørk then played the Kurt Atterberg Cello Concerto. Atterberg (1887-1974) is a name I know--I mention him very briefly in the intro to my book--but I didn't really know any of his music. The work was written between 1918 and 1922, primarily in the predominant national romantic style. Mørk can certainly play--gorgeous tone and spot-on intonation. The piece, however, didn't ultimately excite me. Too much the same. The second half of the program, however, was another matter, with Nielsen's Symphony #3 (Sinfonia espansiva). The orchestra played beautifully. A nice end to the week.

A non-music-related note: There must be a population explosion in Stockholm! There are incredible numbers of baby carriages/prams and toddlers everywhere. It's interesting to see how many babies and children there are everywhere.

Saturday was a relaxing day--the weather turned beautiful and sunny, so we took a long walk, including City Hall where the Nobel prizes are awarded, and ate at a favorite restaurant on Gamla Stan)--and prep time for the rehearsals with the Radio. I should say something about my upcoming work with the Radio Choir. RK normally has four rehearsals per week: Monday 9:30-12:30, Wednesday 3:30-6:30, Thursday same, then Friday 9:30-12:30 again. As they build their season, they plan for "full" productions, which are public concerts, either part of the Radio's series, or sometimes outside productions which they perform for a festival or other outside sponsor. They also have to build in prep time for concerts with the orchestra (such as the Schumann Paradies und die Peri from the beginning of our visit). They also build in tours (they were in Japan earlier this year and did several concerts with Peter Dijkstra in September outside of Sweden). When all of this is done, they have some weeks "left over," and these often become short productions, which don't have enough rehearsal time or repertoire for a full public concert, so are rehearsed and then recorded for later broadcast. I was hired to do one of these short productions, conducting Reger's Acht Geistliche Gesänge and Vater unser (the Vater unser is a 20-minute setting for three choirs). However, this fall the orchestra appointed über-conductor Valery Gergiev (who has to have the most intensive schedule of any conductor alive--Google him and look at what he does) as Conductor Laureate, and as part of that, he's coming to Stockholm to do Act III of Parsifal with the Radio Orchestra and choir (plus the chorus from the Royal Opera) on Good Friday. Unfortunately, this pushed RK's schedule back into the period when I was to do my short production and it couldn't happen. Consequently, they asked if I'd be willing to do some prep rehearsals for them during that week. Of course, I said yes, since to stand in front of this choir is always worthwhile. So my four rehearsals are with an extreme mix of repertoire for various conductors and performances as follows:

Monday: Parsifal (for Gergiev's production--the Opera Chorus no doubt already knows it, so the two choirs will rehearse together closer to the production, or perhaps just a piano rehearsal with Gergiev, if that) and Beethoven (Choral Fantasy & the Gloria and Sanctus from the Mass in C), which is for the Mostly Mozart Festival in NY in August. Why they're doing only the Gloria and Sanctus, I have no idea! It seems odd to pay for RK and have them do only that much on a program, but . . .

Wednesday: Brahms Requiem, for a performance with a Spanish conductor and the orchestra in Norrköping. The choir is expanded to about 48 for this. Quite a few of the extras are new singers from recent auditions who haven't sung with RK before, so we'll see how that goes.

I should say that I have no markings from any of the conductors, so am preparing the choir blind (I'm afraid to say, I've done this too often before--would that orchestral conductors thought about markings for the choir as much as they think about having bowings for the strings in advance!). So, I'll make my best guesses, make decisions as I would for my own performances, and try to vary some tempi and rubati so the choir is flexible.

Thursday's and Friday's rehearsals are both for a performance in Saarbrücken in April or May with Peter Dijkstra, repeating repertoire they did in September with him. They have no rehearsal time with him before this concert (they'll meet him there), so these two rehearsals are to bring the repertoire back up to performance level. For this I DO have a recording from September, so I know what Peter did in terms of tempi, etc. The repertoire is: movements 1, 2, 5 & 6 of Otto Olsson's 6 Latin Hymns; Sven-David Sandström's Hear my prayer (it quotes Purcell's setting in its entirety first) & Singet dem Herrn (one of his newer motets, part of a series that sets exactly the same texts as Bach's motets, also using Bach's divisions of text into movements--this one is particularly virtuosic); Thomas Jennefelt's O Domine; Hillborg's mouyuoum; and Jan Sandström's Gloria. That's a lot to cover in two rehearsals (not that the Brahms Requiem in one rehearsal is luxurious!), even if they know the repertoire. I suspect they will need most time on Sven-David's Singet and the Hillborg, but we'll see. I'll have to play it by ear. Sven-David will be at the rehearsals, so that should be interesting, too.

Ought to be fun!

Sunday dawned another beautiful sunny day (and stayed that way until mid-afternoon when it clouded over), so we had another nice walk in the city between rehearsal prep times, then headed to the Maria Church for a concert at 6 with the Bach Choir. The Bach Choir was founded in 1964 by Anders Öhrwall to specialize in baroque music. They developed a great reputation for their performances of Bach and the Nicholas Harnoncourt recording of the Bach motets with them lists him as the conductor, but he actually played cello and Öhrwall conducted--Öhrwall later told me that Harnoncourt only wanted one thing changed from the way they did the motets--with the exception of that one spot he kept the same tempi, same phrasing, everything! When I visited Sweden for the first time in 1989 the Bach Choir was my favorite choir to listen to in rehearsal--amazing energy in their phrasing and a fresh, vital sound. Maria Södersten, Gary Graden's wife, sang with the Bach Choir at that time and still doe s. Öhrwall developed an unique way of notating his phrasing and this was communicated to choir and instrumentalists alike. Öhrwall also followed Eric as Chief conductor of the Radio Choir (1983-85) and this was NOT a big success--he had a non-traditional conducting technique (although he communicated just fine with his repertoire) and the romantic and contemporary repertoire that were RK's specialties were not his, so it wasn't a good fit. The second time I watched Öhrwall work, he'd had a stroke, which affected both his playing (he led rehearsals from the keyboard) and his speech. The choir's energy and enthusiasm was still the same, however. The choir was also "resident" at Adolf Fredriks Church up until 1999, when their connection with that church was broken (they were always known inside Sweden as Adolf Fredriks Bachkör). One must remember that the choir got considerable financial support from the church and a home to rehearse and perform, so this loss was considerable. They had brief relationships with other churches, but are now a "free-standing" ensemble. Fredrik Malmberg led them briefly, and then Mats Nilsson took charge in 2003, when he returned to Sweden from Australia. Mats sang with the choir for several years in the 1990s and had also guest-conducted them on a number of occasions, so was well-known by the choir. The choir is, in a sense, in rebuilding mode, replacing some older members as they retire with younger ones, and exploring new modes of support.

The concert began with Poulenc's Lenten motets. The church has a very reverberant acoustic, so these were probably the most successful pieces on the program. They were followed by Arvo Pärt's Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen, then the Mendelssohn Organ Sonata in B-flat Major. Then the major work of the evening, Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater for 12 voices, cello, bass, and organ. Mats used soloists part of the time and full chorus the rest of the time. The choir did a nice job with all the repertoire. Audience was small (ca. 100-125) but enthusiastic.

So ended our next-to-last week in Stockholm. Still hard to believe that our trip is almost over--it's gone incredibly quickly.

Stockholm 2007 - Week 3

February 19, 2007
Stockholm, Sweden

Week 3

Monday was another rehearsal with Fredrik Malmberg and RK. This rehearsal was more focused, the first hour and a half being spent on the Petrassi Nonsense songs. For those who don't know this set, these are challenging and the entire time was spent rehearsing slowly and softly to lock in tuning. Certainly those of you who know the Swedish choirs have heard their fantastic intonation--this isn't the only reason it's so good (superb matching of vowels and control of vibrato are a huge part), but a willingness to patiently work at slow tempi and softly (so one can hear!) to lock tuning is another important part. After the break, the rest of the time was spent on Luciano Berio's 'Cries of London.' This is an immensely challenging piece, with many sections being done by either solo singers or part of the choir (first written for the King's Singers, it was revised in an 8-voice version and performed by the London version of the Swingle Singers, who did quite a bit of Berio's music), so it's the most complicated to rehearse. More on that for Wednesday's rehearsal. Kathryn isn't attending many of these rehearsals, but writing, drawing and doing her own exploring of Stockholm during this time.

Tuesday morning I had a lovely meeting with composer Thomas Jennefelt. Thomas has written some wonderful choral music (many will remember his dramatic 'O Domine') and it was good to catch up with him on his latest activities. Thomas has also long been associated with Eric's Chamber Choir, first as a singer (he is a fine baritone) and then as the choir's President. It's a challenge to maintain such a professional choir as a free-lance ensemble and the board is dealing with the eventual transition, post-Eric. They already have fairly regular guest conductors with the choir--Fredrik will do a production of French baroque music with them later this year, and the Dutch conductor Daniel Reuss (who was conductor for several years of Berlin's RIAS Chamber Choir) will do a performance of Stravinsky's Les Noces. They also are the resident choir at the Stockholm Philharmonic's concert hall, not only giving some of their own performances there, but providing the choir for major works--we'll he ar a Brahms Requiem with an expanded version of them there next week. But the survival of the Chamber Choir once Eric is gone is not a given, and something for real concern.

That evening we went to Uppsala to hear a rehearsal of Orphei Drängar, the truly wonderful male choir. OD, as it's called, constituted the "bookends" for my first visit to Sweden for the month of April in 1989: when I first arrived, Eric was doing a short tour with them, so I was invited along--they put me up in the same hotels, I ate meals with the choir, attended their rehearsals and concerts, etc. And at the end of the month of April were the 1st of May celebrations, which in a northern country are a major event heralding spring and the end of short and cold days. Uppsala, about 45 minutes north of Stockholm, is really a university town, and the university is one of the oldest in Europe. So at the end of that month I was the guest of Eric and Monica at a number of events: sherry at the university's magnificent library, after which the President of the University goes out on the balcony to announce to thousands of congregated students that spring has officially begun (after which there is massive partying); OD's spring concert, or Serenade, which is a relatively light program, followed by a dinner (constantly interrupted by traditional Swedish songs which they all know by heart, each accompanied by a toast and tossing down a 'snaps' with a beer chaser--famous Swedish baritone Håkan Hagegård and his girlfrind at the time, American soprano Barbara Bonney were also guests); and dinner at the castle with the governor and about 15 other people. Kathryn also visited an OD rehearsal with me on our first visit to Sweden together after we got married in 1996 and attended (and sang along at!) the 'old boys' luncheon-reunion in 2002, so for both of us OD has much resonance and good memories!

It also began to snow heavily when we arrived in Uppsala for the Tuesday OD rehearsal (we got there around 4), so we ended up eating dinner at a pub ("An English Pub with an Indian Kitchen") and enjoyed chicken tikka masala while watching the snow fall. We then walked through the snow (which was about 6 inches deep) past the Cathedral, which looked fantastic in the light with the snow falling, and over to the Hugo Alfvén Hall, which is a really wonderful rehearsal room belonging to OD. We were greeted by several different people, given copies of the music, and also chatted with Fredrik Wetterqvist, who was the cultural attaché to the ambassador in Canada and came out from Ottawa to a Pro Coro concert one year. He's now Director of the Department of Press Info and Cultural Affairs for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At any rate, the rehearsal was the third one (out of about 8) for Mats Nilsson, who is one of three candidates to succeed Robert Sund when he retires in 2008. The other two are Folke Alin, who is the long-time accompanist and assistant conductor for OD, and Folke's wife, Cecilia Rydinger-Alin--I don't know how they're dealing with that one between them! It was also interesting that Folke (who, with Cecilia, are part of the same "generation" as Mats--really the last generation from Eric's time teaching at the conservatory--and are mid- to late-40s) was accompanying the rehearsal. I was a bit surprised that they wouldn't have another accompanist for both Mats and Cecilia's concerts, but not so. Mats' program is one of the more serious ones of the year for OD, and a challenging program, with music by Ligeti, Lidholm, Jan Sandström, Javier Busto, etc., plus traditional Swedish music such as that of Hugo Alfvén, the conductor of OD before Eric took over in 1951. It's always interesting to hear work in progress, so the famous OD sound was not always in evidence as they worked on difficult and unfamiliar music--one has to remember that this is an amateur choir, although an extraordinarily good one--but will certainly be there once they really know the music. It's truly a gorgeous sound. If you get a chance to hear them on their North American tour in October/November 2008 (Robert's swan song), don't miss it. They're hoping to have a concert in Edmonton, already have one set in Vancouver, B.C., would like one in the Seattle/Tacoma area, and should be in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well.

Wednesday was another RK rehearsal, much of the time with small groups of the choir rotating between several rooms and conductors working on different music from the program, Fredrik working on the Berio, of course. Fredrik asked me to be one of the conductors tomorrow, so I'm not sure exactly what piece or pieces I'll be working on, but will find out and do my best to help out. Afterwards we met with Gunnar Andersson for dinner. It was (as always with Gunnar) a wide-ranging discussion about music and choirs. Gunnar was for many years the Producer for the Radio Choir, not only doing organizational work, but producing and editing recordings (he has a fantastic ear and knowledge of repertoire) and being intensely involved with the artistic planning of the choir. He's also a fine singer, who sang with both the Chamber and Radio Choirs and a small male ensemble called the Lamentabile Consort (Gary Graden was also a member). Since leaving the Radio, Gunnar is working some with Eric Westberg in Piteå in the north of Sweden, as a free-lance producer for Eric's Chamber Choir and others in Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere, and singing with various choirs on a free-lance basis as well. We spent a lot of time discussing the very real challenges facing Swedish choral life right now and Gunnar is a bit pessimistic. I can't argue, as I've seen some of the evidence myself during this visit, but more about that when I've had more time to hear and process more. There is certainly a risk that the "Swedish Choral Miracle" I wrote of is in danger, at least in part.

Thursday was work with RK; for the first hour and a half I worked a half hour each with 3 different octets from the choir, primarily on two movements of the Petrassi Nonsense for better pitch accuracy, but also on the Rossini Toast pour le nouvel an just to drill a bit and make the French flow better (Fredrik has asked them to sing this one from memory as well, so they need the repetition). The RK singers are great to work with and it was nice to help out in whatever way I could. The rest of the rehearsal was about one half hour on one movement of the Berio, which is starting to come together very nicely. Fredrik has also brought in a stage director friend who will do some work on staging the pieces in a more dramatic way. Should be fun! The last half hour was spent on some smaller repertoire, so I went next door to listen to the rehearsal for the Brahms Requiem with Eric's Chamber Choir (expanded to 60 voices). The rehearsal was led by one of the basses in the choir and not a lot of rehearsal was needed, since most of the choir has sung it many times, and they should sound magnificent.

Friday we went to Uppsala for a day-long workshop with the title, "Swedish Choirs will Sing -- But What?" Organized by Stefan Parkman (former conductor of the Danish Radio Choir, Swedish Radio Choir, and a guest conductor with professional choirs all across Europe) and Gunnel Fagius (a musicologist) of the Choral Centre at the University, in a way it was to explore where Swedish choirs have been and where they might be going. Kath was going to spend most of the day wandering through town and took off for her own adventures. The workshop opened with Stefan doing an interview with Eric about his role in Swedish choral life. I should also say that the workshop was all done in Swedish (of course), which meant that I had to really concentrate to follow the discussions. With someone like Eric, I could understand about 75-80% of what he was saying, since I knew most of it already (context is everything). With a few others later, I would say more like 50% or less, particularly as the day w ent on and I got tired! Following a brief break, Gunnel followed the same procedure with Gunnar Eriksson. Gunnar is now 70, although one wouldn't know it: I hadn't seen him since the summer of 1990, when I did the bulk of my research for the dissertation and he looked little changed. Gunnar lives near Gothenburg, on the Swedish West Coast, and I spent 3 days with him at that time, exploring the music of Swedish West Coast composers during the day and going to a local jazz festival at night. While Gunnar studied with Eric, he has never really cared about the "Swedish sound," but developed a unique way of programming, with improvisations connecting different works, and has many arrangements of both old music new, plus a method of improvising in a contemporary style. He's also been influenced by jazz (which many Swedes love), the music of Macedonia and Cuba, the music of the Danish composer, Per Nørgård, and expressed those over the years with his old Gothenburg Chamber Choir and his still-current 12-voice Rilke Ensemble. He gives very popular workshops, not only in Sweden, but all over Europe and also in Cuba and South America on his way of teaching a choir to improvise. It was also great to talk to him at the break and catch up with what he's doing. Just before the break, one of the highlights of the day was Gunnar and Eric sitting down at the piano, Gunnar playing secondo and Eric playing primo (as Eric said, "my left hand doesn't work so well anymore"), improvising a jazz version of "The Sunny Side of the Street." If you've ever seen Eric in his heyday, you know that watching him sit down at the piano during a rehearsal break, improvising jazz, is a very special thing to hear!



During lunch I got a chance to greet other old friends who were there: Bo Johansson (conductor of the Adolf Fredriks Girl Choir--we'd heard Bo had a mild stroke about a month ago and were happy to see that he seemed almost unaffected), Anders Colldén (who had a much more serious stroke about a year ago--Anders taught conducting at the Conservatory and was a church musician at the Oskar Church), Anders Eby (who is Professor for choral conducting at the Conservatory and long-time conductor of the Mikaeli Chamber Choir), Gunnar Andersson, and others. Afterwards, there was a panel discussion, with Anders, Bo, and six others (conductors, a journalist, composer, etc.) each offering their perspective on where Swedish choral music might be going, with discussion afterwards by the audience as well. This was where (especially after Anders and Bo spoke), my comprehension went down to 50% or less, as discussions went further afield and I got tired. Stefan also asked me to come up and say a few words from my own perspective, which I did very briefly (and in English). The day ended with Eric conducting everyone in a Swedish standard, David Wikander's "Kung Liljekonvälje." We ended up on the train home with the "Bo Club," Bo Johansson, Bo Nilsson (a composer) and Bo Ejeby (a publisher who has in his catalogue, among other things, all of Gunnar's music). We sat with Bo Johansson and had a very short trip back to Stockholm, as Bo is great fun to talk with, and caught up on what we've been doing.



Saturday was a wonderful concert at St. Jacob's with Gary Graden (as singer/MC), Steve Dobrogosz (jazz pianist and composer), Anders Paulsson (soprano sax and composer), and Sebastian Rilton (vocal percussion/bass/arranger and leader of "Rilton's Vänner" or Rilton's Friends, an excellent 5-voice vocal jazz ensemble a la the Real Group). This was Gary stepping out of his usual role as conductor and putting together a program (called "Sing Along") with his friends, which included spirituals (for example, Gary and Sebastian did a great riff off of Moses Hogan's "I'm gonna sing 'til the spriit moves in my heart"), some of Steve's original compositions (including 3 great gospel songs), other original pieces, and lots of audience participation, including teaching the audience to sing (and move to) a South African song. If you heard Gary's choir in Minneapolis at IFCM, the spiritual at the end where Gary did the solo gives you an idea of his style (or for my Pro Coro friends, who got to experience Gary as a guest conductor last year). It was a fun, involving concert--definitely not usual St. Jacob's fare--and the audience of something over 300 loved it. An experiment that was a big success. As Gary said, he may do a piece or two at the end of a Jacobs concert where we can "let down our hair," but has never done a whole program like this one. Great fun and I'm sure different versions of it will happen again in the future.

Later that evening was a great party at Gary and Maria's house (a little outside Stockholm), with a lot of their friends, including all the performers, and people of all ages from a girl about 5 years old who charmed everyone, to Gary and Maria's own kids, children of friends and neighbors, and all the rest of us. A party at Gary's and Maria's always has music, so it began with Bo Hansson (a composer and classical guitar teacher who's written several pieces for Gary's choir) doing three guitar duos with Eric (never got his last name), a guitarist originally from Holland who settled in Sweden some time ago. They're preparing for a Swedish Radio production and played some Sweelinck transcriptions (by Eric), an original piece by Bo, and a Fauré transcription.

After that it was dinner, a marvelous Boeuf Bourguignon prepared by Maria, Gary, and mutual friend Joy Hill from England. Joy being there was serendipitous for us, as we met her for the first time at a party at Gary's during our visit in 2002, when Joy came to Sweden for the first time because of an interest in Swedish choral music and the symposium given by Gary, Eric and me in Uppsala. We became good friends and visited Joy and her family when we traveled to London in 2004 and I did a master class at Roehampton Univeristy (where Joy taught at the time). Joy also conducts the Chamber Choir of the prep department at the Royal College of Music and had been doing some workshops in Lithuania (she's done a lot in the Baltics since 2004) and was coming home--Gary convinced her to stop over in Stockholm on her way home. It was the first time we'd seen her in person since 2004, so a great thing for all of us.



After dinner, Gary instigated more music, including the two of us singing some Stephen Foster songs (wow, the original lyrics are incredibly racist!), Steve Dobrogosz accompanying Gary doing Randy Newman (and Gary does a pretty fine Randy Newman impression), and also Steve accompanying one of the boys, around 15 or so, in "Bridge over Troubled Water" (how many 15 year-old boys do you know who'd stand up in front of a group of adults and kids his own age and do that?). Anyway, simply a marvelous evening and we were the last to leave at 2 in the morning, taking a cab back to our apartment.



Sunday was a lazy day early (partly because of getting to bed around 3), followed by an absolutely amazing dinner prepared by Eva Wedin at her apartment in Bromma (a suburb where I lived during the summer of 1990, when I did most my research) along with Arne Lundmark (manager of the Radio Choir) and his wife, Birgit. Another great evening with lots of conversation about a wide variety of topics.

Anyway, we're blessed to have amazing friends here in Sweden. The coming week (and report) will be shorter, as we leave Friday for a week in Kristiansand, Norway for a visit with Kathryn's youngest sister, Heidi, and her family. Heidi did a study abroad program in her next-to-last year as a Norwegian studies major and ended up meeting her future husband, Trygve Trædal, there; he teaches piano at the Conservatory in Kristiansand. So Heidi's lived in Norway nearly 20 years and they have two really wonderful teenagers, Elisabeth and Christoffer. I actually knew Heidi before I knew Kathryn, as she was a student at PLU my first couple of years and went on one Choir of the West tour when we took a chamber orchestra (she's a violinist).