2009
International Sessions for Teens and Adults
Sweden
June 20-July 5 (15 days)
Led by Larry Gordon, Asa Grogorn Sol, Susanne Lind, Suchet Malhotra
Field recording in Ukraine
Summer of 2008
The first eight nights we will be in residence at Tokalynga Teaterakademi which is situated in the small village of Gunnarp in the rural southwest area of Halland, about 120 km southeast of Gotheborg. Through the village runs the little river Ätran, and up in the forest there is a small lake where one can swim. We will have our first two concerts in this area. Then we will move to Göteborg, where we will be hosted in homestays, and we will use this as our base for a further week of performances, workshops and festivals around that area.
Rehearsal week in Gunnarp, Halland, Sweden
Tuition: $1,400
Leaders
Village Harmony founder and director LARRY GORDON has been making community music in Vermont since the early 1970s. He founded Village Harmony in 1988. Though his first love was medieval and renaissance music, he is a vital figure in New England shape-note singing. Larry is an inspired organizer with an unerring eye for good repertoire and a unique knack of pulling together interesting combinations of singers and letting them shine. His patient and relaxed, yet demanding, teaching style and collaborative approach have shaped the welcoming atmosphere of the Village Harmony community since the beginning. Larry has led Onion River Chorus in Montpelier since the late 1970s, and is well known across the US and internationally for leading stunning periodic adhoc incarnations of Northern Harmony, a semi-professional tour group made up largely of veteran Village Harmony singers.
ASA GROGARN SOL is an active choir leader, singing teacher and organizer of folk music events, who has been deeply involved with folk music for two decades, with particular interest in traditional Scandinavian and Eastern European music. She has been to Georgia on numerous occasions where she worked with Zedashe Ensemble in eastern Georgia and the Pirtskhelani family in Svaneti. She has also studied traditional singing styles in Finland, Norway, Lithuania and Bulgaria. She presently leads three choirs and performs with the vocal trio Iris, along with Susanne Lind, another co-leader of this year’s camp. Her own choral arrangements and compositions combine folk music in the old style with influences from the baroque and from Georgian polyphony. She also has 30 years experience as a journalist and presently works part time at Swedish Radio Broadcast Company.
SUSANNE LIND is a Swedish folk singer and fiddle player who has worked and toured with concerts and theatre music for the last 13 years. She is also one of the artistic leaders at the music camp Ethno in Sweden, for which 100 young musicians from all over the world come together and play traditional music. Susanne has lots of experiences from teaching music and dance, and organizing groups and events.
SUCHET MALHOTRA is an Indian percussionist trained in Hindustani vocal music and tabla. He has evolved as a percussionist who plays hand drums from the world's major drum cultures, in particular from India, Africa, South America. Sacher also uses instruments from folklore--the fujara from Slovakia, the Australian didgeridoo--in cross-over music. Suchet has worked with Susanne Lind in Sweden’s Ethno camps and plans to teach tabla this summer.
Tokalynga Teaterakademi
Gunnarp, Sweden
Formerly a school but home now for 20 years to the theatre group Albatross, Tokalynga is an artists’ and performers’ workshop center located on the River Atran in the small village of Gunnarp 120 km from Gothenburg, in the Halland region of southwest Sweden. Tokalynga offers a special atmosphere amidst echoes of the past, situated as it is in a calm landscape of fields and forests. Housing for 30, a small sauna, large kitchen and two large rehearsal rooms, nearby swimming lake.