Parents all have favorite stories about their children that they share when company comes over. These tales are usually brought out to illustrate some defining and possibly amusing character trait. In my case my mother tells the story of asking me what I wanted for my fifth birthday, and her surprise when I told her my top items were a passport and an atlas. Though we had no plans to go anywhere, to my mother’s credit she got me both. I still have the passport and it’s an awesome picture of an intrepid little boy with a bowl cut and a fascination with foreign cultures.
Later in life this manifested itself as an interest in languages, which led to participation in exchange programs abroad. As a high school kid in 1985 I found a program that would take me to Sweden, and spent six weeks living with a family in a small town in south-central Sweden called Motala. It was a great experience, and I ate more potatoes and herring than I ever thought possible. The latter is an acquired taste which I have since dis-acquired.
Fast forward 30 years to 2015, and along comes the International Conductors’ Exchange Program, sponsored by ACDA. The people-to-people exchanges have been going on for some years, and when I saw that Sweden was on the list I immediately thought how great it would be to return and reconnect to a place that I knew at a different stage of life.
These are true exchanges, meaning we were both to host and be hosted, and for me the former came first, with two Swedish conductors, Mats Bertilsson and Lars Fredén, coming to the US. Their trip coincided perfectly with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale tour to Salt Lake City for a performance at the convention, so we “embedded” the two Swedes with us for our rehearsal process and the tour from New Mexico to Denver to Salt Lake.
They enjoyed the opportunity to observe the inner workings of an American professional choir, and also experienced American choral culture through visits to school and church choirs. While on tour with the Desert Chorale they took part in choral workshops and masterclasses, all leading to the rich experience awaiting them at the ACDA national convention. After only 10 days we parted as good friends.
In September I made the return visit to Sweden, extending the trip a few days before to visit friends that I had not seen in 30 years. It was wonderful to reconnect, and surprising to feel that not that much time had passed, when in fact we had gone from being teenagers to parents of teenagers. I visited the family that I had lived with in Motala- they were still in the same house! They said they remembered me as the boy who read Swedish grammar books at the lake- sounds about right.
Sweden itself seems to have changed quite a bit thanks to recent and not-so-recent waves of immigration. Since my visit in the 80’s a new generation of immigrants arrived, had families and integrated into the society, changing what was once a very homogeneous human landscape into a more varied one. Sweden continues to be at the forefront of welcoming immigrants- most recently thousands by the week have been flooding into Swedish ports, fleeing war-torn homelands in the Middle East and Central Asia.
My unofficial duties over, I was met by Mats Bertilsson, who hosted me for several days in Örebro, and medium-sized city about 2 hours west of Stockholm. There I attended choir rehearsals, led workshops on American music, and spoke with music educators from around the region. As is always the case, we found many commonalities both positive and negative in our respective choral cultures, but also learned from some of the different approaches in the Swedish and American systems.
Each choir I was with performed Swedish music, most of which was new to me despite the fact that I had programmed quite a bit of Nordic music with my choirs. It was a great reminder of the breadth and depth of repertoire that we have as choral musicians, and how hard we still have to work to find it, even in the age of instant access via the internet.
The Dallas Symphony Chorus has a tradition of international touring, and the group had expressed an interest in our next trip being to Scandinavia. With that in mind we went to Stockholm to investigate potential venues, and make contacts with orchestra leaders who might be collaborators down the road. Over Swedish coffee and a lot of pastries we established a good foundation what I think could be a wonderful tour experience including joint concerts between Swedish and American ensembles.
I am so grateful to ICEP for providing the forum through which these connections were forged. To the dedicated volunteers who help make ICEP run so smoothly- thank you!
Joshua Habermann
Music Director, Santa Fe Desert Chorale
Conductor, Dallas Symphony Chorus
Later in life this manifested itself as an interest in languages, which led to participation in exchange programs abroad. As a high school kid in 1985 I found a program that would take me to Sweden, and spent six weeks living with a family in a small town in south-central Sweden called Motala. It was a great experience, and I ate more potatoes and herring than I ever thought possible. The latter is an acquired taste which I have since dis-acquired.
Fast forward 30 years to 2015, and along comes the International Conductors’ Exchange Program, sponsored by ACDA. The people-to-people exchanges have been going on for some years, and when I saw that Sweden was on the list I immediately thought how great it would be to return and reconnect to a place that I knew at a different stage of life.
These are true exchanges, meaning we were both to host and be hosted, and for me the former came first, with two Swedish conductors, Mats Bertilsson and Lars Fredén, coming to the US. Their trip coincided perfectly with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale tour to Salt Lake City for a performance at the convention, so we “embedded” the two Swedes with us for our rehearsal process and the tour from New Mexico to Denver to Salt Lake.
They enjoyed the opportunity to observe the inner workings of an American professional choir, and also experienced American choral culture through visits to school and church choirs. While on tour with the Desert Chorale they took part in choral workshops and masterclasses, all leading to the rich experience awaiting them at the ACDA national convention. After only 10 days we parted as good friends.
In September I made the return visit to Sweden, extending the trip a few days before to visit friends that I had not seen in 30 years. It was wonderful to reconnect, and surprising to feel that not that much time had passed, when in fact we had gone from being teenagers to parents of teenagers. I visited the family that I had lived with in Motala- they were still in the same house! They said they remembered me as the boy who read Swedish grammar books at the lake- sounds about right.
Sweden itself seems to have changed quite a bit thanks to recent and not-so-recent waves of immigration. Since my visit in the 80’s a new generation of immigrants arrived, had families and integrated into the society, changing what was once a very homogeneous human landscape into a more varied one. Sweden continues to be at the forefront of welcoming immigrants- most recently thousands by the week have been flooding into Swedish ports, fleeing war-torn homelands in the Middle East and Central Asia.
My unofficial duties over, I was met by Mats Bertilsson, who hosted me for several days in Örebro, and medium-sized city about 2 hours west of Stockholm. There I attended choir rehearsals, led workshops on American music, and spoke with music educators from around the region. As is always the case, we found many commonalities both positive and negative in our respective choral cultures, but also learned from some of the different approaches in the Swedish and American systems.
Each choir I was with performed Swedish music, most of which was new to me despite the fact that I had programmed quite a bit of Nordic music with my choirs. It was a great reminder of the breadth and depth of repertoire that we have as choral musicians, and how hard we still have to work to find it, even in the age of instant access via the internet.
The Dallas Symphony Chorus has a tradition of international touring, and the group had expressed an interest in our next trip being to Scandinavia. With that in mind we went to Stockholm to investigate potential venues, and make contacts with orchestra leaders who might be collaborators down the road. Over Swedish coffee and a lot of pastries we established a good foundation what I think could be a wonderful tour experience including joint concerts between Swedish and American ensembles.
I am so grateful to ICEP for providing the forum through which these connections were forged. To the dedicated volunteers who help make ICEP run so smoothly- thank you!
Joshua Habermann
Music Director, Santa Fe Desert Chorale
Conductor, Dallas Symphony Chorus
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