of Lars J. Nilsson

So Italians don’t believe in clear signs, do they? Which is, I claim, why some of us went for a stroll outside the airport *before* getting our luggage… Er… But we did get back in! Without too much of a fuss! Good for us!And it’s hot here. Very hot.

This is a tired choir. We’re at Oslo airport switching planes. And I managed to close the door to my apartment without my keys this morning… Oh well, who need keys in Italy eh?Time to board. Damn I’m tired…

I’m off to Fano, Italy, with St Jacobs Chamber Choir tomorrow. If everything goes well, I’ll live blog the tour here… Let’s see how it goes eh?

I’m in Debrecen, Hungary, thursday to sunday singing with the St Jacobs Chamber Choir. Which me luck.

So, I’m on YouTube for the first time. Well, actually it is together with a bunch of other persons. And to be honest, the camera actually manages to miss me completely with the exception of me left hand entering picture at one time. Other than that, stardom here I come!I should perhaps be a tiny bit clearer. I’m talking about St Jacobs Chamber Choir. At the festival Musica Sacra in Marktoberdorf, Germany.Knut Nysted, Es sollen wohl Berge weichen. Pump up the volume before listening to this. Really. It is supposed to be rather large and loud. It feels like its been ever so slightly compressed in this recording. Also you can’t hear much of the text, but I’m not sure you can blame that on the recording, I’m afraid St Jacobs isn’t always texting as well as we should. But I really like the pice, I’d love to sing it again.Sven-David Sandström, Komm, Jesu komm. I’m not a huge Sandström fan. And this isn’t my favourite pice either. But it is a rather typical Sandström, for good and bad. It was commissioned by St Jacobs for their 25th anniversary. Double choir. Inspired by Bach. Ending with a very beautiful motett. Again, just a bit clearer text would have been nice.Lastly, an improvisation over traditional Den blomstertid nu kommer. Not my cup of tea at all. But St Jacobs have been doing it for a while and the audience, sitting sorrounded by the choir standing after the walls, or simply spread out, in the hall, seems to love it. There you go. Enjoy.

It is easy to critisize others. Easier still to critisize yourself. Point in question: this afternoon I sang the baritone solo in Corraddo Margutti’s “Missa Lorca” with St Jacobs Chamber Choir. And… I blew it. Normally I try very hard not to be self-critical ater a performance, if nothing else because it makes you look like a tweep. But this time, I sank back to a place and a sound where I haven’t been for… Well, I don’t, 2 or 3 years. I cracked the first F#⁴, and the G⁴ at the end was pure will and no tone. Think fucken screaming, ok? Although the tenors in the choir tells me we we’re more than a half-second off pitch at that time, so it was probably more like a Ab⁴+. But even so, I didn’t sing it well and it annoys me.I really, really wanted to nail that solo. And I failed.*sigh*But no cloud without a fucking silver lining, eh? My dear friend Åsa Dornbusch (SV) was up from Germany, and was there listening. We had a nice dinner on Haga Deli and we had some nice DVD opera-nerdery at my place afterwards.Thank goodness for my friends.

I spent the evenings this week working with Eric Ericson Chamber Choir. For those of you not in the know, it is one of the most influencial chamber choirs in recent memory, as well as one of the absolute best. In the world.We did Brahms Requiem together with the Royal Philarmomic Orchestra. Peter Mattei (!) and Henriette Bonde-Hansen sang the solo parts. Marc Soustrot conductet.Reviews here (in swedish): DN, SVD.Peter Mattei was of course terrific. Splendid voice. And he sang it very straight, letting the music through and used only small effects to underline the text. Very nice indeed.Working with EEKK was a lot of fun. I havn’t been in any so obviously professional choir since I left the Gotheburg opera. Being back in the ranks with the professionals was nice. They also had a very good rehearsal dicipline that I enjoyed. No small talk, lets just sing. Arne Almroth led the choir rehearsals. Nice chap, good work.I also got to meet and sing with my old friend Eva again. Wheeee!All in all: splendid stuff.

I spent the Weekend at Torpshammar with St Jacobs Chamber Choir. And would you believe it? The proprietors were all whisky fanatics. Or sort of anyway. And they had this thing for Duncan Taylor & Co Ltd. Which is, of course, completely understandable. So, among other things I tasted:

• Invergordon, 39YO (Grain / Highland / Duncan Taylor)
• Bunnahabhain, 33YO (Malt / Islay / Duncan Taylor)
• Bruichladdich, 37YO (Malt / Islay / Duncan Taylor)
• Johnnie Walker Green Label (Vatted Malt)
• Duncan Taylor Regional Blended; Islay (Vatted Malt / Islay)
• Duncan Taylor “The Big Smoke” (Vatted Malt / Islay)

Whee!

So, I went to a crayfish party yesterday with St Jacobs Chamber Choir. It was actualy my first kräftskiva in a very long time. Just to be on the safe side I brought along an extra bottle (75 cl) of my own black currant brännvin for the snaps. It disappeared in no time at all, my boy, that is one thirsty choir.So I guess my headache is justified today.Anway, in order for you all to feel like I’m doing today, here’s how to make your own black currant brännvin:

1. Find a good brännvin to use as base. Everyone I have ever talked to use swedish Brännvin Special. If you use something else, remember that you want a clear, dry, no extra “taste”, brännvin with something like 30% strength. If it is stronger you can add water to take it down.
2. Empty the berries in a closable container. Pour brännvin over them. Just enough to cover the berries. Close the container and put it out of the sun for a week.
3. You should now have a very strongly colored liquid. Almost black. Filter away the brännvin from the berries into a bootle. Now the berries are done, my suggestion is to serve them with ice cream to your friends. Just heat them slowly while stirring in some sugar. Serve hot. Bliss!
4. Close the bottle and leave it for some 4 months at a calm place. This is for any dust escaping your filter to settle at the bottom of the bottle. When it as setled, gently decanter the brännvin, taking care to exclude the dust.
5. Almost there. The result sould be very strongly colored. But it is not the finished product. You need to mix it with more of the brännvin you started with to achieve a good balance between berries and spirit. For black currants you can use about 1 third black current brännvin and 2 thirds new spirit. Altough the bottle I had yesterday was 50/50 which worked nicely as well. It is a mater of taste. You’ll need to try different variants to find the level that suits you.

There you go. Oh, that reminds me: I still have some blue berries, juniper and pors (sorry, I havn’t got my english dictionary at hand) to try out. Excuse me for a moment…