November 19, 2018

Helsinki, Finland

Greetings from super chilly Helsinki, where it’s hovering around 0-1c. We’re here on the final stop of a short but lovely tour around Europe, which has covered Italy, Hungary, Sweden and now Finland. Our time in Skellefteå, in northern Sweden, was very special over the weekend. We had chance to coach 5 choirs from the area, and they were all delightful to teach and very good at absorbing our ideas! The concert was also a treat, and we got a great sense of warmth from the audience, despite the cold outside. For me, it was a pleasure to have a little arrangement performed as the encore. I arranged a little Swedish hymn - Sankta Lucia - for this concert, and the guys kindly agreed to put it in the performance. It’s nice to hear one’s handiwork turn into sound! After this evening’s concert, in Helsinki’s beautiful Musiikkitalo, we have a fairly short night of sleep, then an early start to get our flights back home, where have a few days before we head off on tour again next weekend. For some of us, though, we’ve got early morning appointments at the (new) US Embassy, to be interrogated for our work visas in the period 2019-20. Always a joy..! Hope you’re managing to keep warm, wherever you are in the world.