Songs of joy at senior citizens homes

Oh, today we have made half way in this tour at senior citizens homes. Mikael Godée and I are recieving so much back from them, our audience shines towards us. I guess live music is a welcome break in daily routine in theese homes. And for Mikael and me, we have been playing the wedding songs in so many different places now, festival-gigs at Faroe Islands, churches, cafées, and now for the elderly people.
Sometimes younger relatives come to see their mothers and fathers there, and one woman told us how her dement mother became much more alive when listening to us, to music. She was very thankful and in occasions like this it's a double joy to be out there and present live music.

Always a joy to me to sing the songs where love is celebrated. Here's some places and views I saw today along the road.
Wish you a good weekend!
Eva

21 more concerts to go

Every day before going to perform we meet in the lovely neighbourhood of Haga, a part of Göteborg that is well known for it's athmosphere. As in many towns such neighbourhoods have a history of being the place where artistic and creative people used to live and that made the whole area flower. Today it's one of the best places to live, cosy and trendy, small shops and lots of cafés. It's a mix of second hand shops and exclusivse shops. The cafés is a must for a visitor.
Warming up before concert. Mikael Godée.

5 concerts compleeted, 21 more to go.
Our set of songs feels really good. We knew from the beginning that our concert has mostly repertoire that is not well-known, and that can be a challenge. But the message has been clear so far. It's all about love. Every song is in one way or another part of the wedding traditions where love is celebrated. It's based in party-music from the old days, and our task as todays performers is to bring it to live again, the spirit of celebration.
Some of our listeners have heard the song written by Svarta Masken (Anna Myrberg), the creative author and performer who lived in Stockholm around 1910-1930.

I just love looking around in the smaller and more remote second hand shops. I just found this lovely coffé cup from England.
Today we have two concerts. Seeing more parts of Göteborg, seeing more white hair heroes, they are so sweet!

Eva

Grand tour at senior citizens homes

Good morning!
Today I have the pleasure to start a 26 concert long tour at senior citizens homes around Göteborg. It's a real pleasure to do this with saxophonist Mikael Godée who is my collegue, fellow musician, duo-partner whom I have collaborated with for years now. We explore music in the borderlands of jazzmusic and folkmusic, all the time focusing around melody, improvisation, openess in listening, sound, colour of tone.

I hope we'll touch some hearts along our tour, presenting some of the joyous songs from the wedding traditions in nordic countries. Among other songs I will also sing a song written by Svarta Masken, a creative, musical and a little bit "mysterious" woman who worked as performer and author in Stockholm in the 1920th. She used humour as her tool. Her name was Anna Myrberg, born in Norberg, and she lived between 1878-1931.

Most of all we will make sure the audience will have a moment of live music, close and warm. The performances most often take place in the dining rooms, and it's easy to walk around and get close contact with the listeners. Small rooms where the acoustics might be a little dry, but we'll do it the best we can. It's going to be fun!

Have a nice day!
Eva

Sunergy

These are the days, we are the times.

I love my life and the ones in it.

Eva

Musical ecology and space for all spieces

RFoD take part in the music network, the whole ecological system of different spieces in our musical world....
Yesterday I was leading the planning meeting at the RFoD office. (RFoD, Swedish Folk Music and Dance Association.) A couple of times each year we are a small group of members of the board who meet the employees in RFoD office in Stockholm. It's a very interesting process, an extremely turbulent time in cultural politics, and a most creative situation.
Khaos is neighbour with creativity.
I'm so thankful that we have a good talking climate, people dare to be personal and share their inner views. And we have big questions to juggle. We are progressing all the time!
I made a one hour coaching for RFoD, sharing the philosophy of the Seven habits of highly effective people, a book by Stephen Covey. Very useful information there, especially talking about the deeper meaning of win-win. The synergy when proactive people and organisations collaborate and create innovative new sollutions and developments. Goes for yourself, your own being, your family life, and in your work.

After our day with RFoD I rushed to get to the rehersal of Irmelin vocal trio. So good to see Karin Ericsson Back and Maria Misgeld and sing. Lovely women!
Singing is my main.
The singing is the reason I take part in all the other networking.
Music and voice is the center of all other activity in my work.
Irmelin will perform in Söderleds church at 4 pm on Sunday this week, the 18th of September. We have a full concert based on sea shanties, ballads and hymns.
You are all warmly welcome.

Eva

Two strong women: Svarta Björn and Djur Djura

This week I'll start a new choir project with womens choir Iris in Göteborg. We'll collect songs made by women, sung by women, and tell stories of womens life. My input in the project will be to coach with folk music, the singing style, and some repertoire.

For the rehersal tomorrow I'll bring three lovely lullabies plus two songs telling the story of Svarta Björn. Anna Rebecka Hofstad was cooking food for the rail road workers near Narvik, and she became a legend during her short life, known for her strength, her intelligense, her rightiousness, her beauty. So much a woman! Strong and beautiful, that's the way! Not much is known about her background, but she came from Norway. Her grave is in Tornehamn, a graveyard for the railroad workers. There are lots of songs about her.
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svarta_Bj%C3%B6rn

I found again Djur Djura. There's something with her voice that sounds like a young girl, but in fact, she's a generation older than me!

Djur Djura moved from Algeria to live in France and make her own music there. She's a great role model for many women. As a baby she was rejected by her own mother just for being a girl baby. She was then raised by older relatives. Djura dedicates her songs to “all women who have been deprived of love, knowledge and freedom”.

This song is about a a girl dreaming of freedom.



So, let's rock n roll into this new day, bring in our strength and our beauty. Come on girrrrls!
Eva

Folkmusic sustainability

Rain and sun, sun and rain, Gothenburg seems to have it all!
Among other things today, I've been reading the document that RFoD, SSR and Folkdansringen and more instanses are working on. I'm so proud of our collaboration between all the national associasions in the field, that take part in this work of the document. I'm so proud to read this now, we have been working for years to make a compleete survey/research of the whole situation for our genre folkmusic and folkdance in Sweden. In its wider sense including all forms of it, multi cultural, worldmusic, the whole rainbow of musical colours, both traditional and experimental, contemporary. Phew, imagine how big that is to make a survey! Many people has been involved in doing this of course.

The purpose of the text is to find political goals for the next 5 years, where do we stand today, and where are we going the next period? Where's the weak points and where's the strength in our genre?
So this has been my joy today, to see that we have actually worked all the way to a good document where great parts of the genre is represented, the professional sides as well as the amateur sides. In this, prof/amateur, we are so closely linked together and that is one of our strength to the whole picture.
The document is still under construction. Soon soon it's going to be released for public!

Yesterday I started a 7-week intense course in Alexander Technique, for my teacher Barbro Olsson that I study for since many years. So I'm just about to do my home work for that: to lie down on the floor with a few books under my head and just be there relaxing my back. For 15-20 minutes let my neck and back rest and be stretched out by gravitation and the support of the hard floor. Sounds strange? Not at all. This is the real deal. Let the body work as it's designed to do. Let the spine stretch out. Alexander Technique works deeply in your motional behaviours and allow you to find the healthy habits in body movement. Essential to have the best way to perform and to sing.

You've got spine!

Eva