Thursday, July 25, 2002 07:30
Location: SAS Lounge, Helsinki Airport
Weather: Overcast

Well, the trip's basically over so I guess this will probably be my last post about it for a while. I've been negligent in writing even my paper copy of the journal the last couple of days, so I may have to gloss over some of the details.

First, a general impression of Finland. Man, this country is a lot like Ontario. Well, the trees, rocks and wildlife are a lot like Ontario. And the lakes. And the highways and farms. Not so much the Finns themselves... and forget about the language. Although since most Finns seem to speak excellent English, I suppose the language isn't an issue anyway.

Monday we did a bus tour of Helsinki. The weather was scattered cloud, but with rather more cloud than sunshine, and most parts of the city seemed dull as a result. Helsinki's an interesting place to get a sense for what could have been done in Canada. Most of the oldest buildings were wiped out in various fires over the last few hundred years, so the city is really very young: our guide said the oldest surviving buildings were about 200 years old. The downtown area is a jumble of Euro-standard six and seven story commercial and residential buildings (i.e. high ceilings, rickety elevators and no air conditioning) along with modern monstrosities easily the equal of those in the new world. With a population of 600,000, it's smaller than Toronto but has a far more appealing geography, low rolling hills with water on three sides. The government buildings and arts facilities are rather more subtle and reserved than most of the other capitals of Europe.

We stopped in the cathedral square to get our first look at the building where we would perform Monday evening, a beautiful structure that towers over the surrounding city, with massive orthodox-style minarets tiled in green and tipped with gold. From there we strolled down to one of the market squares, where fresh vegetables, flowers and fish were lined up for inspection, along with postcard and souvenir vendors. The harbour next door boasts some of the largest cruise ships I've ever seen.

Driving through some of the park land further south on Helsinki's peninsula, we stopped at the Sibelius memorial, a jumble of disconnected organ pipes suspended in a natural park setting. Finally, we drove around to a park museum, an island connected to the mainland by a pedestrian bridge, which served as the bucolic setting for a number of traditional Finnish homes. On the far side of the island we ate a wonderful smorgasbord lunch in a romantic wooden hall.

After a rest and changing into our concert dress back at the hotel, we went back to the cathedral for our sound check. Since we hadn't sung in four days, but especially since the orchestra improved with every bit of rehearsal time, we ran through the entire Requiem, getting a sense of the acoustic, much more lively and responsive than the halls in Russia. The interior of the cathedral was a stark white, but the organ pipes in a small gallery across from our risers were capped with gold, brightening up the overall impression.

Between the sound check and the concert we took a number of group photos on the steps of the cathedral and then broke to go find a quick snack. A cafe across the square served up freshly squeezed orange juice and excellent coffee, and I had a delicious vegetarian wrap, largely filled with chickpeas. The concert was a great success, probably the best performance of our tour, and we had an excellent audience. We left on a high, and went back to the hotel to consume more of the blackberry vodka.

On Tuesday we had another great buffet breakfast and checked out of the hotel to drive to Lahti and Heimola. In Lahti we stopped for an optional tour of the new Sibelius Hall, a 1,250 seat concert and recording hall completed in 2000. It's a fabulous building, built largely of wood but incorporating some marvellous modern tricks to make it a very flexible space. The outer walls are a metre thick, wood filled with sand to provide total sound dampening, important for a hall that is to be used for recordings. Inside, echo chambers can be used to provide a cathedral-like sound, but acoustic doors and curtains can be opened and closed, raised and lowered to adjust the sound to a great extent. With the curtains down and the doors closed the hall becomes a chamber music space. Those of us on the tour sang briefly on the stage and were quite pleased at the result. The total price of the hall: 20 million Euros. Compare that to Roy Thomson hall, which cost $ 80 million to build and is currently undergoing a $ 20 million sonic refurbishment... (And ok, so Roy Thomson seats 2,500, but still...)

After a lunch in Lahti's market square we continued our way to Heimola, or rather to a hotel set in some woods 35 k from Heimola. We checked in, and had time for a short swim in the pool before changing and hopping back on the buses to go to Heimola for our final concert. We had a very long and winding road to get there, about 70 minutes, which was pretty but for some of those in the bus, rather nauseating (lots of ups and downs). Before too long, though, we were there.

Our sound check, though, was not to be. The concert venue was an outdoor amphitheatre, covered by a fixed heavy tent-like roof but open to the wind at the sides, and the orchestra, annoyed at not being told they would be outside, refused to play the sound check, citing humidity concerns. The choir lined up and ran through a couple of pages of the first movement a capella to get a feel for the space (zero reverb, of course, but surprisingly good at channeling the sound to the audience) and then took a break. Our subgroup ("les six" as we'd come to be known) walked into town and found a liquor store to replenish our supplies, and a grocery store for water and snacks.

The final concert was to an audience of a couple of hundred. For the first time, we weren't too hot: indeed, we were actually somewhat cold, since there was a breeze off the water at our backs. But it all went very well, and before long we were filing off and past our evacuating audience into a single-story hall up the hill where we had a celebratory/farewell dinner with the orchestra. For all their dodgy dealings (to whit, not knowing the music, starting rehearsals late, insisting on finishing rehearsals on time, playing out of tune & too loudly, asking for extra money) we'd had a good time performing with them and were happy to buy them some drinks and share some food. A couple of the trombone players (the worst of the bunch) managed to get a kiss from Laura, our soloist. To Ngaio's delight, they came back to ask for a kiss from her as well. The rest of the orchestra stayed in little groups, munching their food and chatting only to each other, but they responded with pleasure when approached.

Finally we bid them farewell and borded the buses for the trip back to the hotel. This time we took the direct route, and cut the travel time in half. Back at the hotel we had a last boozy night of "Les six" and polished off a bottle and a half of vodka before calling it a night at 1am.

The next morning (Wednesday) we packed up and had a late breakfast, checking out of the hotel at 11am for the trip back to Helsinki. We stopped for a while at a motorway rest station (which had really good coffee) and pulled up at the Ramada Presidentti again at 1pm.

The afternoon was free, and after unpacking I split from the rest of the group to go check out the Museum of Modern Art, nearby. It's appropriately modern structure had five levels connected by free-standing ramps and staircases, with smoothly effective sensor-activated sliding doors separating the exhibits. It wasn't bad, but there really weren't that many different things to see: some pop art, some clever tricks with two-way mirrors and time-delayed closed circuit televisions, a room where a keyboard launched visual images instead of sounds, and some clever Finnish allegorical works that I didn't understand at all (and couldn't read the explanation of either). Still, it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

Following the museum I took a last wander around the downtown area. The Esplanade, a main shopping avenue with a park running down the middle, was packed with people enjoying the afternoon arrival of sunshine and a free jazz concert in a small bandshell at the far end. I wandered down, poked around the dock area, walked up to the Russian orthodox church and took some photos. On the way back towards the hotel I stopped in a couple of stores to try and find some of that famous Finnish design in an easily portable form, but everything looked either large, kitchy, or like I could get it at Ikea back at home.

Back at the hotel, we gathered at 7:30 and walked south along a lake, passing a concert hall and the new opera house, both set attractively next to a lake in a park threaded with pedestrian and bicycle pathways. The restaurant was a gleaming work of art itself, low and stereotypically Scandinavian in its pale wood and bright steel construction. We were greeted on the way in by one of our tour guides, who handed out roses. Inside, a glass of pink champagne was compliments of Perform America, the arts tour company who'd planned the trip. We had a wonderful meal: a fresh salad, an entree of salmon and tasty potatoes and beans with a cream sauce, and ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert.

We walked back through the dusk to the hotel, where we gathered in Howard and Maggie Dyck's suite for one last bash. Since I'm flying home by a separate route from the rest of the choir today I said my goodbyes as the evening finished, and returned to the room to pack. Yet another great trip finished, and for my leave of absence, a great way to cap it all off! To everyone who came along or who otherwise made my 10 months off a wonderful experience, THANK YOU! It's been a great year.
posted by Tom at 2:15 PM | link |