Eric Ericson Award 2024
Three of the world’s best young choral conductors who have advanced from the semi-finals will now compete for victory at this Final Concert with the Swedish Radio Choir, Zero8 and S:t Jacob’s Chamber Choir. It will be a thrilling final with choral art at the highest level.
Finalists are Alexander Lüken, Germany, Heide Müller, Germany, and Marcel Ortega I Martí, Spain.
The international competition for young choral conductors, the Eric Ericson Award, is organized in memory of Eric Ericson’s great cultural contribution as a choral conductor and pedagogue, and is today the world’s foremost choral conductor competition. The winner gets the opportunity to work with 10 of Europe’s leading radio choirs and receives a prize sum of SEK 100,000, provided by the Rosenborg Gehrmans Foundation. The two second prize winners each receive a scholarship of SEK 25,000.
The award strives to achieve a very high artistic and competitive level in choral conducting, corresponding to the status that Eric Ericson achieved worldwide during his active years.
The Eric Ericson Award is organized by Sveriges Radio under the auspices of Berwaldhallen, and in collaboration with the Royal The Musical Academy with the support of the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, the Märta Christina and Magnus Vahlquist Foundation, the Rosenborg Gehrman Foundation, and the European Radio and Television Union (EBU). The competition is planned to be held every three years.
In 2021, Krista Audere from Latvia won the Eric Ericson Award and since then she has, as part of the award, given concerts with around ten European radio choirs. She has also been appointed as the first guest conductor for the Swedish Radio Choir.
In the finals, we get to meet the three finalists chosen from 84 applicants, as they conduct the Swedish Radio Choir in each choral piece from the Western music tradition. In addition, the men’s choir Zero8 and S:t Jacob’s Chamber Choir will also perform with their respective programs.
Text: Bengt Arwén
(Translated by Anna Rickman)
Participants
32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.
The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.
The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.
Alexander Lüken, born in Germany, earned a bachelor’s degree in music in 2016 from Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and later pursued a master’s degree in conducting from Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar. He frequently works with ensembles like ChorWerk Ruhr, the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra and the Cologne Radio Choir, where he is assistant conductor.
Heide Müller is a German conductor. In May 2024, she made her debut with the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir after serving as assistant to chief conductor Grete Pedersen from 2022 to 2024. In September, she returned as a guest conductor with Cappella Amsterdam, and in November, she will lead the Balthasar Neumann Choir as chorus master for the Herbstfestspiele Baden-Baden.
Marcel Ortega i Martí has studied conducting in the Basque Country, Italy and Switzerland. He has formerly been a finalist in the first Spanish Conducting Award. Ortega i Martí is Master of Choirs in Conservatori Municipal de Música de Barcelona, where he conducts the four major choirs and teaches choral conducting. He is also a guest conducting teacher at the Castelló Superior Academy of Music.
Zero8 is a Stockholm-based male choir that was founded in 2007 by a group of students from Stockholm’s Musik Gymnasium under the direction of Doug Harrington. With its roots in barbershop, the choir also sings music from the classical repertoire, allowing the two genres to influence each other. In September 2024, the choir won the European Grand Prix in choral singing.
The choir is then led by Rasmus Krigström, a composer, conductor and singer with Ringmasters, and consists of 20-50 world-class singers. Zero8’s merits include a top 3 placement in the International Barbershop Chorus Competition, a Grand Prix win at the Rimini International Choral Competition, three CDs and recurring appearances on Swedish Television.
Rasmus Krigström started singing in a choir at the age of five. He attended Adolf Fredriks musiklasser and Stockholms Musikgymnasium, and at the age of nineteen was already singing in some of Stockholm’s best amateur choirs.
Krigström began studying choral conducting and pedagogy at the Academy of Music in Stockholm in 2007. At the same time, he began working professionally with choral and ensemble singing, for example in Radiokören, arranging music for vocal groups.
In 2006, Krigström began singing lead in the barbershop quartet Ringmasters, who became International Quartet Champions 2012, the first non-American ensemble to win. Ringmasters has toured the world and, among other things, has been guest teaching at Harmony University in the USA. Krigström also coaches barbershop choirs and quartets and is a certified judge in the barbershop genre. He is also the conductor of Zero8 and co-conductor of Pearls of the Sound in Helsingborg.
S:t Jacob’s Chamber Choir was founded in 1980 and was first called S:t Jacob’s Youth Choir but changed to its current name in 1990. The choir has been active in S:t Jacob’s Church and in the Storkyrkan since the beginning and has always had the ambition to manage and develop S:t Jacob’s Church’s choral and musical life.
The choir has a solid track resume: regular concerts, active participation in the church’s worship life, concert tours, choir competitions, music festivals, choir boarding schools, CD and radio recordings, commissions of new works, collaborations with conductors, instrumentalists, orchestras and other choirs. Over the years, over 500 singers have joined the choir and made it develop its artistic profile.
S:t Jacob’s Chamber Choir regularly performs at church services and concerts in S:t Jacob’s Church and in the Storkyrkan in central Stockholm. The choir’s repertoire consists of a cappella music from various styles and eras as well as large-scale works for choir and orchestra. The choir has won several of Europe’s leading choir competitions, including the European Grand Prix, and regularly participates in major international festivals. The choir represented Sweden at IFCM’s sixth world symposium for choral music in Minneapolis in the USA together with Eric Ericson to demonstrate ”the Swedish Choral Miracle”. The choir is led by Gary Graden.
Gary Graden was born in the USA and studied at Clark University, Hartt School of Music and at the Aspen Summer Music Festival as well as choral conducting for Eric Ericson and orchestral conducting for Kjell Ingebretssen at the Academy of Music in Stockholm. Graden has sung in Eric Ericson’s Chamber Choir and has been a member of the vocal ensemble Lamentabile Consort.
Graden is today a cathedral cantor in the Storkyrkan and S:t Jacob’s Church and has previously been a teacher at Stockholms Musikgymnasium where he founded the Stockholms Musikgymnasium’s Chamber Choir. With this choir and S:t Jacob’s Chamber Choir, he has participated with great success in a long series of choral festivals and choral competitions in Europe and Sweden. Together they have also participated in many festivals such as the IFCM World Symposium in Minneapolis and Kyoto, as well as at the ACDA National Convention in the USA. He is a sought-after conductor, teacher and jury member both nationally and internationally and has conducted a wide range of foreign choirs such as SWR Vocal Ensemble, Orpheus Vokalensemble, Jauna Muzika, Pro Coro Canada, the Formosa Singers, The Singapore Ensemble Singers and IFCM World Youth Choir.
With the trio WÅG (Wager Åstrand Graden), Graden explores and experiments with improvisational music for voice and instruments and with S:t Jacob’s vocal ensemble he performs repertoire from all eras for solo voices and small ensemble. In addition to his interest in contemporary music, Graden has also performed major works such as Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in C minor, Bach’s passions and Mass in B minor, as well as requiems by Brahms, Duruflé, Fauré and Michael Haydn. His work as a conductor and singer is documented on numerous radio recordings and CDs.
In 2005, Gary Graden was named Choir Director of the Year. In 1998 he received the Johannes Norrby medal and in 2009 he received the Guidoneum Prize from the Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo in Italy together with the S:t Jacob’s Chamber Choir.
Programme
Friede auf Erden
Da die Hirten ihre Herde
liessen und des Engels Wort
trugen durch die niedre Pforte
zu der Mutter mit dem Kind,
Fuhr das himmlische Gesind
fort im Sternenraum zu singen
fuhr der Himmel fort zu Klingen:
Friede, Friede auf der Erde!
Seit die Engel so geraten,
O wie viele blut’ge Taten
hat der Streit auf wildem Pferde
der geharnischte vollbracht!
In wie mancher heil’gen Nacht
sang der Chor der Geister zagend
dringlich flehend, leis verklagend:
Friede, Friede…auf der Erde!
Doch es ist ein ew’ger Glaube
dass der Schwache nicht zum Raube
jeder frechen Mordgebärde
werde fallen allezeit:
Etwas wie Gerechtigkeit
webt und wirkt in Mord und Grauen
und ein Reich will sich erbauen,
das den Frieden sucht der Erde.
Mählich wird es sich gestalten
seines heil’gen Amtes walten
Waffen schmieden ohne Fährde
Flammenschwerter für das Recht,
Und ein königlich Geschlecht
wird erblühn mit starken Söhnen,
dessen helle Tuben dröhnen:
Friede, Friede auf der Erde.
Conrad Ferdinand Meyer
Fred på jorden
Då herdarna lämnade sin hjord
och trädde in genom den låga porten
med ängelns ord
till modern med barnet;
sjöng de himmelska härskarorna
i stjärnerymden
och himlen genljöd:
”Frid, frid på jorden!”
Sedan änglarna sjöngo den gången,
o, hur många blodsdåd
i vilda strider med häst och rustning
har icke världen skådat.
Hur många heliga nätter
sjöng icke andekören ängsligt,
Innerligt bevekande, stilla anklagande:
”Frid, frid på jorden!”
Dock är det en evig tro
att den svage i alla tider
skall bli ett rov för varje
illasinnat mordförsök:
Något som kallas rättfärdighet
lever och verkar i mord och fasa,
och ett rike skall uppstå
som söker frid på jorden.
Långsamt skall det växa,
förvalta sitt heliga ämbete,
smida vapen utan fara;
Flammande svärd för rättvisan,
och ett kungasläkte
skall blomma med starka söner;
Och deras klingande trumpeter skallar:
”Frid, frid på jorden!”
Övers: Eva von Scherling
DE PROFUNDIS
De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.
Domine, exaudi, vocem meam.
Fiant aures tuæ intendentis
in vocem deprecationis meæ.
Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus:
speravit anima mea in Domino.
Laude
Il cantico di frate sole
per coro misto a cappella
Altissimo onnipotente bon signore,
tue son le laude gloria e l’honore et anne
benedictione.
A te solo, altissimo, se confanno
et nullo homo è digno te mentovare.
Laudato sii, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature,
spetialmente messer lo frate sole,
Io qual’ iorno, et noi per lui.
Et ello è bello e radiante cum grande splendore,
da te. altissimo, posta significatione.
Laudato sii, mi signore, per sora luna e le stele,
in celo l’ai formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato sii, mi signore, per frate vento,
et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo,
per lo quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento.
Laudato sii, mi signore, per sor aqua,
la quale è molto utile et humile et prtiosa et casta.
Sonnets of Desire, Longing, and
Whimsy by Stacy Garrop
Texts by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I. No by this moon, before this moon shall
wane (from Collected Poems 1931)
No by this moon, before this moon shall
wane
I shall be dead or I shall be with you!
No moral concept can outweigh the pain
Past rack and wheel this absence puts
me through;
Faith, honour, pride, endurance, what
the tongues
Of tedious men will say, or what the law ¬¬¬¬—
For which of these do I fill up my lungs
With brine and fire at every breath I draw?
Time, and to spare, for patience by and by,
Time to be cold and time to sleep alone;
Let me no more until the hour I die
Defraud my innocent senses of their own.
Before this moon shall darken, say of me:
She’s in her grave, or where she wants
to be.
Il. Time does not bring relief;
you all have lied (from Renascence and Other Poems, 1917)
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every
mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every
lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old
thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, ¬¬¬¬— so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, ”There is no memory of him here! ”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
Ill. I shall forget you presently, my dear
(from A Few Figs from Thistles, 1920)
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-
lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are.
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far, ¬¬¬¬—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
In winter’s house there’s a room
that’s pale and still as mist in a field
while outside in the street every gate’s shut firm,
every face as cold as steel.
In winter’s house there’s a bed
that is spread with frost and feathers,
that gleams in the half-light like rain in a disused yard
or a pearl in a choked-up stream.
In winter’s house there’s a child
asleep in a dream of light that grows out
of the dark, a flame you can hold in your hand
like a flower or a torch on the street.
In winter’s house there’s a tale
that’s told of a great chandelier in a garden,
of fire that catches and travels for miles,
of all gates and windows wide open.
In winter’s house there’s a flame
being dreamt by a child in the night,
in the small quiet house at the turn in the lane
where the darkness gives way to light.
Av Jane Draycott
Responsorium:
Una hora non potuistis vigilare mecum,
qui exhortabamini mori pro me?
Vel Judam non videtis quomodo non dormit,
sed festinat tradere me Judaeis?
Versus:
Quid dormitis? Surgite et orate,
ne intretis in tentationem.
Vel Judam non videtis quomodo non dormit,
sed festinat tradere me Judaeis?
Responsorium:
Ni orkade alltså inte hålla er vakna en enda timme med mig?
Eller ser ni inte hur Judas inte sover,
utan har bråttom att överlämna mig till judarna?
Versus:
Varför sover ni? Stå upp, be
och gå inte in i frestelse.
Eller ser ni inte hur Judas inte sover,
utan har bråttom att överlämna mig till judarna?
Responsory:
What, could you not watch one hour with me,
you that were eager to die for me?
Or do you not see Judas, how he sleeps not,
but makes haste to betray me to the Jews?
Verse:
Why do you sleep? Arise and pray,
lest ye fall into temptation.
Or do you not see Judas, how he sleeps not,
but makes haste to betray me to the Jews?
Matteus 26:40
Choir
Deliver us,
Soloist
Oh my Lord is watching over me.
Choir
Oh, yeah
Soloist
He’s gonna protect my so carefully, like Daniel
In that den, in the lion’s den.
Choir
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel,
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?
Hallelujah children
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel,
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?
Saved every man, I tell you brother
He deliver’d Daniel from the lion’s den,
Jonah from the belly of the whale,
And the Hebrew children from the fiery furnace,
Then, why not every man?
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel,
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?
The wind blows east and the wind blows west,
It blows like the judgement day,
And ev’ry soul that never did pray
Will be glad to pray that day.
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel,
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then, why not every man? Yeah!
Choir
Deliver us, deliver us
Soloist
I heard my Lord will deliver every man
Did never believe those words but now I know He can.
And I know He paid that debt to wash my sins away
And I say; now come what may, ya gotta thank Him every day.
Choir
I set my foot on the Gospel ship,
And the ship, it begin to sail,
It landed me over on Canaan’s shore,
And I’ll never come anymore.
Didn’t my Lord, my Lord deliver Daniel,
Jonah from the belly of the mighty whale?
Never did believe it, how he could achieve it?
And now I know so well yeah, yeah, yeah!
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Deliver Daniel, deliver Daniel,
Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Straight way from the Loin’s den
Say, didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel,
Then why not every man?
Mihi dicesti: tempus tuus in hoc patria terrestre finivit.
In hoc modo dixerunt de terra Tua et nostra.
Mirabilis est, quod hoc audientes tristitia non sentio.
Multae stellarum videbam.
Admiror et miror potui.
Scio, ut Tu infinitus es et in palma manus Tuae magnae
et caldae claudo oculos meus et accendus sum.
Scio, ut mox videre, audire, sentire potuo quid
mirabilia. Pater meus – in patria Tua!
THANK YOU, CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE!
You said that my time in this Land is now over.
That’s what You said about You and us.
Strange that I don’t feel sadness when I hear this.
I have seen many stars,
I have being able to marvel and admire.
I know, You have no boundaries in your big and warm hand.
I close my eyes and am excited because I know I will soon be able to see,
hear and perceive something wonderful!
In your Land, Father
Text av Jaan Tammsalu
Approximate concert length: 2 hours including 20 minutes intermission
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