Did you know I was once a professional choir singer?
I worked in church choir and for one year I worked with the famous Swedish radio choir . I was one of the singers when we performed a requiem by Sven David Sandström för the first time in Berwaldhallen in Stockholm. Tonight I listen to the recordings from the Concert found on spotify. Memories are coming back to me… There was protests outside the concert hall… the lyrics by Tobias Berggren was inappropriate they said and definitely not for young girls to sing… there was high security and rumors said that the event were under bomb threat. The music is both very beautiful and sometimes awful, just like the lyrics. “The memories of the fallen” was inspired by documentation of German and French Nazi persecution of the Jews marketers, the paper Svenska dagbladet wrote. The concert was broadcasted live in Swedish radio and recorded and released as an album, now available on spotify. Sven David Sandström was rewarded with the Nordic Council Music Prize for this requiem. Want to know more? read here. Want ti listen? Listen here.
To me this is much more provocative than punk or death metal… Both the music and lyrics describe the horror when families were put on trains for the last journey towards execution… No toys were allowed on the long journey…
ASATRON 