Off the hook

It's late, and I don't feel like going to bed.

I'm calmer than I have been in weeks... the fact that I can sit here and write about nothing in particular is one sign of that.

M is asleep by now; Loffe and Byzans appear to have joined him (unless they have found sleep spots downstairs).

The computer wants to close down, and I really should sleep too -- church service with the chamber choir tomorrow. But it's nice, just sitting here alone.

I have always enjoyed nights.

I a week I'm going for a cruise on the Mediterranean with Ljungandalens kammarkör. It was a very sudden decision about half a year ago, mostly because we got an affordable offer. So, here we go. We are going to sing at the Swedish Church in Rome, as some kind of excuse for going.

I have packed most things, dyed my hair, removed the hair on my legs. Now I have to remember that we still have practice on Wednesday. There's plenty of time to get nervous.

Tomorrow is Easter Mass in Haverö, and I don't like the songs we're going to sing.

Ok, it's one of them that I think is terribly sexist, but no one else seems to agree. I suppose I'll have to clench my teeth and sing it.

At tonight's choir practice we finally got the spring plan. So now we know that the spring concert will be on the third of June. And that Easter will be the normal stuff. And the music service next Sunday... well, we had been told about that.

We were quite efficient, perhaps eight songs.

I like being snacklistmaker for the choir. I get to mix people and dates around, I get to decide who goes where, I get to latex the list and print it. It's fun.

Then I get to do it again, because no one* bothered telling me which dates didn't work for them.

*Actually, someone did bother, but I never got her sms. Weird. And annoying.

I promised to help out at a gathering tomorrow, which my friend Mv organises. This was to include some choir songs. Now it turns out that the lady who was going to sing alto won't be able to come. Which means that I have promised to learn some new parts.

I suppose I should sit down and call it fun.

The Yearly Easter Choir Pile-Up is approaching -- or rather, it has started. It started this Sunday, to be precise. Ljungandalens kammarkör sang at the service, together with the two children's choirs. We were all very impressed by the kids.

There'll be three more services with choir in the coming week (Friday, Sunday and Monday). Also some lunches. And that's pretty much how I celebrate Easter.

Choir started on Wednesday. We got three new songs. Very differnt from each other too: Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Benny Andersson and Allan Edwall! I'm looking forward to this spring.

T had something to say about the classical piece -- Juninatt by Peterson-Berger. He pointed out how Swedish it is. Not just the song itself(which is indeed classical Swedish choir music): the title "June Night" is really only comprehensible to Scandinavians. We are very romantic about our summer nights.

We started practice at twelve. The children's choir arrived at a quarter to three, so we could rest and have some layered sandwich. And change.

It was a nice concert, and people seemed to like it. I think my placement went back and forth during the course of it.

Trying something new, I wrote the name of the next song on the back of every sheet, which worked so-so. Next time I'll try writing on the front instead.

This means Christmas is officially over :)

Today was taken up by two Advent services, in Haverö at eleven and Ånge at two. For me they meant singing from ten in the morning until three in the afternoon. Ok, I didn't sing the whole time.

I actually got to hear Haverökören -- I had slipped out for a moment to fix my hair and change my shoes, and they started without me -- and I found it a real pleasure: tight and focused and beautiful. From the inside, a choir usually sounds flat and noisy, and even if you learn to hear, or feel, when it's "right", you don't really know what "right" is, until you get the chance to listen from the outside. So I was happy about that.

Ljungandalens kammarkör was joined by the children's choir, who sang a couple of songs. They were good. There were nine children, four of which were boys! We were all very excited.