Field trip! The exhibit that was assembled in honor of Eric’s 100th birthday is still in place at the Upplandsmuseet, and we’d been looking forward to going to see it together. The spelklass had spent an afternoon session with Sonia a couple weeks earlier to talk about Eric, look at old photos, listen to some recordings, and watch some video footage; it was nice to have that extra background before seeing the exhibit. (Plus, it never hurts to hear some of the same content twice when it’s all in Swedish.) Sonia met us at the museum and gave us a guided tour, which was fascinating since of course she is very much a part of her dad’s story.
The picture Sonia paints is of a very modest man who never sought the spotlight, but who was able to pursue his music so fully in large part because of being championed by others. She cites especially his wife, who made it possible for him to be away so often playing music when she might reasonably have wished him to be home helping with the small farm, and Gösta Sandström, his longtime music partner, whose hard work brought in funding and recognition and a great many playing opportunities. I especially enjoy picturing Eric and Gösta representing Swedish folk music on a 5-week Soviet tour in 1956, as part of a small delegation of Swedes: opera singers, ballet dancers, circus artists, and… two nyckelharpa players!
It seems we are on the tour itinerary of the recruiting team for the Musikhögskolan i Malmö, so we got a little concert last night featuring some students from their world music degree program. There was also quite a lot of talking about the school and its offerings and teachers and why each of them chose that program over its competitors. It was an entertaining program; it may be a long time before my next opportunity to hear a Boda polska played on oboe and electric bass.
There was a bit of a late-night jam session in the dining room when I was on my way home from the practice room, so I sat in for a bit. The Malmö crowd seemed most interested in playing klezmer and swing and blues and whatever-all else fell into their heads, though I did pick up a nice polska with an equally nice title involving princesstorta.
We’ve also been invited to visit KMH, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, which is the oldest and most prestigious program for folk music. There are a few in our class who intend and/or hope to apply to music school(s) for next year.
Free concert by my favorite band of the Linköping festival! (Well, no formal admission charge, anyway, but they do pass around a tip jar and everyone seems to take it seriously.)
Also, fastest response time ever on the new-CD request: last month I posted here that “Björnlert/Pekkari/Hedin … should make a CD together so I can buy it,” and they just released it a couple weeks ago!
I found something exciting and official you can do without a personnummer in Sweden: get your very own library card! So now I know where the library is in Tierp, and I have a (small) pile of (children’s) books to prove it. I also conducted the whole errand in Swedish — except that I discovered I had forgotten how to pronounce (some of) the names of letters, so I needed to write down my email address rather than attempting to spell it out. Dang, and I even have a handy ref table for that in the back of my grammar book.
I checked out the two Pettson & Findus books that were available — thanks in part to recs from all y’all — and they were instantly popular when I brought them home. Now also soliciting suggestions for chapter books; my Winnie-ther-Pooh reading is going well, albeit not very fast.
Andrea’s and my first Swedish aurora! Johannes has been tracking the scientific data for several weeks, so he has a pretty good idea of when it might be worth going out to look. Also he’s scoped out our best nearby vantage point, which is just off the bike path toward the train station, at the edge of a clear field that faces north. So we bundled up at 1am and went out to admire. This was not an especially dramatic showing, as these things go, but we were happy for the adventure all the same.
My own photos don’t really pick much up at all, even after I figured out how to set a 15-second exposure. This is one of Johannes’s, at 30 seconds.
aurora! 30-second exposure
