KVT – Dominate Dominant

KVT is enamoured of the Finns

You warmed to them immediately they came on stage. They are a very polished and professional group of amateur, university choristers that make up one of Europe’s most recognizable choirs. It’s been in existence for 37 years, undertakes annual international tours, has a repertoire ranging from folk to popular to jazz to classical and they are Finland’s Dominante.

Finland has a population of about 5.4 million, has an education system that is held up to the rest of the world as a model to follow and cuturally has more professional orchestras and performance spaces than other wealthy countries with 10 times their population….and I haven’t started on their superiority in other cutural areas that puts larger places in the shadows – and as for their superior level of government funding of the arts well, enough enviously said!

Locally the Finns have allowed us to appropriate expat artist Marita Nurmi and her wonderfully zingy work. Annually they give us a little jewel, such as a surprise at the Opera House or a Finnish Movie Week at the Cinemateque. A couple of years ago they loaned us choreographer Jorma Uotinen via the Swedish Malmo Dans Theater and the old opry house resounded with the heavy metal sounds that accompanied ‘Black Water’ and we saw the best contemporary dance you’d be happy to see anywhere.

Dominate is lucky to have had the same creative artistic director, Seppo Murto, since 1981 and it’s no doubt because of his inspiration that the choir is so exceptionally good.

At the Youth Theatre we got a show to please everyone. They started with a set of Finnish folk songs, completely wowed the whole audience with their take on Rimsky- Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ and cemented their approval with the old standards ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square’……but when they launched into a dramatic Lorca Suite from the poems of Spanish Civil War poet and martyr Federico Garcia Lorca, set to music in 1973 by Einoujuhani Rautavarra, then I went from saying ‘Nice!’ to ‘WOW!’

After another dramatic bit from Shakespeare’s Macbeth when we got the witches’ ‘Double Double Toil and Trouble’ and realized the group’s obvious acting potential, they presented their coup de grace for the evening that completely blew me, and the majority of the audience, away.

Finland shares some language and thus creation stories with neighboring Estonia – a ferry ride across The Gulf of Finland. These creation myths are age-old sung poetry from Finnish and Karelian folklore and mythology and were put into an epic poem, Kalevala, in the nineteenth century by Elias Lonnrot. In 1972 Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, regarded to be one of the world’s greatest living choral composers, put his talents to the tale and on Tuesday night we got an outstandingly gripping version of ‘Raua needmine’, the Curse of Iron – about the evils of war – and all singers plus the two male soloists knocked my socks off for the 10 minutes plus duration. The shamanic drum accompaniment was riveting.

As a choral work “Raua needmine’ is often performed throughout the world and is, I consider, as powerful as the most oomphy bits in Carl Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ and a version by Estonian epic metal trio Mesatoll really rocks

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiEIpGmYYZU&feature=related[/youtube]

So here I sit listening to Dominante’s CD ‘Raudan Kiros’ which contains the best of the best of their choral work..including the Lorca Suite and that powerful Curse of Iron and which I wish I could share with you. It sort of grabs hold and won’t let go.

My gut reaction was to rush the Finnish Embassy for free tickets as soon as the gig was announced and am I ever glad that I did! I’d love to see them give a full blown concert in Japan or Hong Kong during their present Asian tour.

I hope I got my Finn cum Estonian mythological observations and guesses mostly accurate, and apologies to the purists if I’m a bit off the mark….and as for those Finnish names – you can’t help but be seduced by the spelling!

Here’s a YouTube link to a very Nordically dramatized version of that Iron Curse

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9h3oaPR0AE&feature=g-vrec&context=G28a740eRVAAAAAAAAAw[/youtube]

And another of the choir in full formals

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3L4g3yq5Rw[/youtube]