the rough translation:

Saturday, November 19 at 15:00
Tones and landscape
Radio Choir Stockholm Music Gymnasium
Grete Pedersen conductor
Helene Sture Borg conductor
Bengt Ollén conductor
Ulf Strömqvist Percussion
Magdalena Meitzmer percussion
Anders Hague percussion

Presenter: Catherine Lindblad
The concert will be broadcast live SR P2
Approximate concert length: 1 hour 20 minutes

Jaako Mäntyjärvis Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae is dedicated to the memory of the people who disappeared in the depths where ship Estonia sank in September 1994.  The text is from Psalm 27 and the quotation from a news commentary in Latin on the accident. Board have been widely reported and can now counts to the standard repertoire in contemporary nordic choral music.

Karin Rehnqvist has a strong position as a composer of choral music and professor in composition at the Academy of Music Stockholm. Haya! A song for today's joy was written in 2009 as an order for Eric Ericson and to this work, Karin Rehnqvist created a whole new language, hayanska.  For today's concert, the Radio Choir commissioned a version for double and may find their
first performance.  One of our absolute most successful and important composers of today, Sven-David Sandström. His extensive list of works includes many choral works. One of the most represented are Hear my prayer. There Sandstrom has been based on an incomplete anthem by Purcell and pulled out the harmonics and melody to an 8-stämmigt cry to God.

As Nørgårds Alleluia - vor God s forrykt!  Occurs both separately in 2 Wölfli-Lieder as well as concluding procession fragile in the opera It guddommelige Tivoli from 1983.  Drömmesange is a lullaby with Chinese influences. It depicts a boy that looks into the future on as an adult it. All rock / alternate between black and white. The picture of herself in beautiful clothes and the child who asks: Where are we going?  The image contrasts of the nightmare That man is bloody and armed and baby cries: Where are you going? 

Johannes Brahms From Drei Gesänge is Vineta song. Here we can see down into the depths of the sea where the beautiful ruins shiny curls.  The sailor hears the sound of his beloved Meeting. 

American composer Eric Whitacre and choirmaster. Sleep from 1999 depicts the safe sleep as gently rocking takes over.

Fredrik Sixten broke through in 2004 as composer with a Swedish Markus Passion.  Active as Cathedral organist in Härnösand.  Peace was premiered in September in Italy.

John August Pamintuan is a composer and choir director from the Philippines. His COMPOSITION De Profundis to the text of F G Lorca sung worldwide. Despite its youth, he has written over 300 choral works.

The Norwegian choir director Grete Pedersen teaches choral conducting at the Music Academy in Oslo. Since 1990 she leads the Norwegian solistkor. She has studied with among others Eric Ericson and has previously visited the Radio Choir on several occasions. She has released several CD including The Norwegian solistkor. During the fall a recording of choral music by Schubert and Brahms.

Kungsholmen's High School of Music offers high school students with depression in choral singing. Pupil chorus routed this of the teachers Bengt Ollén (also leads Sofia Vocal Ensemble, which in the spring took home several awards at choir competition in Slovenia) and Helene Sture Borg, who also chairs Stockholm Music Gymnasium Choir and have recently started the choir Stockholm Vocalis.

_Philippine pianist Rudolf Golez and I are performing in recitals in St. Petersburg and Moscow from 27 March to 5 April 2012 after our shows in New York.  We are performing an all-Filipino repertoire of folksongs and kundimans, in fresh, new arrangements by contemporary Philippine composers.

Our program is as follows:

Sitsiritsit arr. Nhick Pacis
Ahay Tuburan arr. Nilo Alcala
Bituing Marikit, music Nicanor Abelardo, arr. Ryan Cayabyab

Mayon (piano solo, music Francisco Buencamino)

Dandansoy arr. Nilo Alcala
Manang Biday arr. Nhick Pacis

Ang Larawan (piano solo, music Francisco Buencamino)

Zamboanga Hermosa arr. John Pamintuan
Pamulinawen arr. Nhick Pacis

Special thanks to Joseph Legaspi who generously allowed the use of the new arrangements which are featured in his new CD.

Over the last couple of months, I gave workshops to choirs in Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, United States, Canada, Manila, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, and China.  I am very happy that all of the competing choirs abroad won in their contests (ACJC, Holy Innocents, and St. Gabriel's in Singapore, MRC in Indonesia).

Just yesterday, I gave a seminar on vocal and choral techniques to 10 choirs from all over Manila, with students numbering almost 300.  It was a very happy occasion, as all of their conductors came from one choir, the Philippine Normal University (PNU) Chorale.  This being the case, they were like a very big family but I had to keep them all awake with my jokes as the workshop was held right after lunch and it was raining outside, which made it very comfortable to fall asleep.

Last night the Cebu Chamber Singers won the Grand Prize in Busan Korea and I felt like I also won the Grand Prize because they sang three of my songs and I also coached them some time before the contest.

During my discussion with the conductor of PNU, she mentioned how tired she gets from the continual turnover of the singers, and the arduous process of annually training new members.  But she is glad to see that I still work hard and have the same passion for teaching as before, which of course I attribute to the fact that I don't have a regular schedule.

You get burned out from usual problems that a choir faces, but if you just go and visit choirs days at a time, this problem is non-existent.

Of course I have a new choir now, but we meet only once a week, and we spend more time eating than singing.  Maybe that's how I can always maintain a spontaneous approach.

In a few days, I will be in Japan to give workshops to 6 choirs, and with all the food, drinks, and nightly parties there, I am sure the teaching perspective will all the more become "fresh" :)

It's a rainy night and I'm listening to Matthias Goerne's CD of Schumann songs, accompanied by Eric Schneider on the piano.  And towards the end, I was captivated by his singing of this beautiful Stille tranen (silent tears) with a haunting melody which I'm sure will elicit a tear or two from every listener. 

I always believed that rain was the silent tears of a God, a Father whom we often take for granted.  So while listening to the song, let us reflect on the text, and appreciate how beautiful it has been set to music by Robert Schumann.

Incidentally I have a plan of forming an all-male group of 16 singers, that will specialize in the performance of transcriptions of art songs, an idea which I got from my friend, Stojan who has asked me to arrange songs for his award-winning group "VAL."  And while at it, already arranging this song for TTBB.

Stille Tränen
text by Justinus (Andreas Christian) Kerner (1786-1862)

Du bist vom Schlaf erstanden
Und wandelst durch die Au.
Da liegt ob allen Landen
Der Himmel wunderblau.

You have risen from sleep
And walk through the floodplains.
As if all the earth is
The beautiful blue sky.

[So lang du ohne Sorgen
Geschlummert schmerzenlos],
Der Himmel bis zum Morgen
Viel Tränen niedergoß.

[How long have you without worry
Dormant less painful] ,
The sky until morning
A lot of tears poured down.

In stillen Nächten weinet
Oft mancher aus dem Schmerz,
Und morgens dann [ihr] meinet,
Stets fröhlich sei sein Herz.

Weep in silent nights
Often some of the pain,
Morning and then my sake [you] ,
Always cheerful was his heart.

My last post was April, as I was so occupied travelling and giving workshops/concerts the past couple of months. 

Beginning March, I travelled non-stop to:

Vietnam
Manila
Singapore
Singapore (yeah I went back after a few days!)
Indonesia
Singapore
Manila
Japan
Baguio
Manila
Singapore
Indonesia
Singapore
Manila
Singapore
Indonesia
Singapore
Manila
Baguio
Manila
Beijing
New York
Boston
and Canada next week for Festival 500!
I hope you excuse me for my absence :)

this is from a Japanese student's blog, which I believe is more important than any critic's review.  thank you, whoever you are..

a Filipino composer Mr. J · A · Pamintuan performed "Dulcis Maria" I joined the choir sing. Mr. Pamintuan make the lessons (it was amazing how real everything he put out from bass to the soprano voice ...), a very valuable opportunity, and personally led! During the lesson, the teacher is "feeling well the meaning of poetry, to sing with all your heart," he proclaimed, I was constantly impressed by that. Some religious songs, but that, like singing and deep prayers.

I am very excited to see all of you at the 2011 OSAKA Chorus Messe. It will be a very educational weekend of singing lessons and choir concerts that will surely be enjoyed by music enthusiasts from all over the Kansai area, as well as nearby cities. I am also looking forward to teaching and conducting the premiere of the new music I wrote for this festival, "Dulcis Maria".

At this time where suffering is experienced by Japan, we look towards the future with optimism. Many of my friends ask why I am going to Japan. As a musician, this is my humble way of helping rebuild the morale of the people, by sharing music to ease fear and sorrow and to quiet agitated hearts.

I hope to see all of you at the Chorus Messe.