On Saturday 26th May, choristers from St. Nicholas, St. John’s Shedfield and the Isle of Wight flew to Stockholm, for a week of singing with the choir of Djuro church. We had spent the previous weeks madly rehearsing a large programme of songs, some of them in Swedish.
We were transported from Arlanda airport in the Djuro choir bus and given a warm reception by our hosts. Most of us stayed with individual families, while the rest stayed in a hotel some distance away.
On Sunday we went to the church for a 9 am rehearsal for the service at 11 am and began with a series of physical jerks and warm-up singing exercises, which were obviously well known to the resident choir, and we joined in enthusiastically. We then rehearsed the seven (!) anthems for the service with Julia (Shedfield), Valerie (Wickham) and Margareta (Djuro) sharing the playing and conducting. The Djuro choir was well-trained and enthusiastic and we loved singing with them.
They all spoke excellent English and took every opportunity, especially at meal times, to sit among us and make friendly conversation. We soon felt very much at home. The first evening meal was particularly memorable - in a large boathouse on the seashore, in perfect weather, with a typical Swedish midsummer buffet, and punctuated by the Swedish singers performing song after song, unaccompanied, as they sat among us.
The following day they took us on a boat trip through some of the thousands of islands, and we sang a Communion Service at the chapel on Sandhamn island (only five anthems this time). It was celebrated by Shirley and Yvonne, the Djuro priest. The boat was a good place for community singing, and we realised that our knowledge of English folk songs was sadly lacking, especially in 4-part harmony. We aim to rectify this before they pay us a return visit.
There was no official singing programme on the Tuesday and the Choir bus took us on a tour of Stockholm with a very interesting commentary by one of the Swedish basses. We had a short time of prayer, remembering all the people of Wickham at Arnold’s funeral, before we got off the bus for lunch. The afternoon was spent on the island of Vaxholm, where we visited the local church and sang an impromptu anthem from memory - we really felt we had become a single choir. In the evening there was another splendid communal meal, our final meal together, although there was one more day to go.
We were on our own for the last day, using public transport to get to Stockholm and visit whatever had taken our fancy on the tour the previous day. (There are so many interesting places that we all need to go back again.) At 4 pm we met at the Anglican Church to rehearse for our English choir concert at 6 pm. All was not well; the church was locked, and when we got in, a piano tuner began to tune the piano for a recording the following day, and the vicar insisted on making us a cup of tea. We eventually got through our rehearsal just in time for the concert, to find that a large part of our audience was members of the Swedish choir and our hosts. They were tremendously encouraging, and ended by singing Auld Lang Syne and Jerusalem with us. We couldn’t have wanted better support if they had been our own families.
The next day after hugs and farewells and many thanks, the choir bus returned us to Arlanda airport. The whole trip was masterminded by Shirley, to whom we are so grateful for a wonderful experience. We are now busy planning how to return the hospitality when the Djuro church choir comes to England.
Valerie Shuttleworth
